Ob Zen - Album Art

Album Art

Although Meshuggah had not done so in the past, the album art of obZen was outsourced. With a vision of what they wanted the artwork to be, Meshuggah made use of cross-media artist Joachim Luetke. In an interview with Nuclear Blast USA, Haake and Hagström explain that the artwork features a photograph of a male model in the "zen lotus position" with the bottom half of the photograph being from a female model. This is because the male model could not perform the position, making the figure androgynous. The model is covered in blood, which is explained as a metaphor for mankind finding peace of mind through obscenity. Additionally, each of the three blood-smeared hands poses in the shape of the number six, which is meant to symbolize the inherently evil nature of man.