Archive for the ‘illustrator’ Category

netalula

Friday, September 3rd, 2010

Netalula’s iden­tity might be an enigma wrapped in a rid­dle (Sein­feld ref­er­ence, any­one?), but her illus­tra­tions are sim­ply won­der­ful. Sightly more tra­di­tional in terms of com­po­si­tion and for­mat, there is still a bit of mystique.

I love Netalua’s paint­ings, and how they actu­ally look like cut out pieces, with the stark con­trast and heavy empha­sis on shape. It painterly, but also feels designed. The point of view is an inter­est­ing one, and also con­sis­tent. Netalula has abstracted and obscured our view­point to have us look­ing over each activ­ity and sit­u­a­tion that her char­ac­ters par­take in. We are a voyeur, and at time it feels like her sub­jects know this. There is a cer­tain shy­ness to them, in terms of pos­ture and gaze.

All images via her Flickr.

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eleanor taylor

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

Eleanor Tay­lor is an illus­tra­tor study­ing at the Royal Col­lege of Art. Her work utl­izies a lot of draw­ing, but also incor­po­rates some paint­ing and col­lage as well.


There is an empti­ness and iso­la­tion to Eleanor’s work. It’s not exactly com­fort­ing, and at times extremely vul­ner­a­ble. I think that’s where the suc­cess in her work lies. Her illus­tra­tions expose a prim­i­tive feel­ing, in both style and exe­cu­tion of media. I see ref­er­ences to Medieval and Byzan­tine paint­ings with the flat por­trai­ture, as well as even a cubist feel with the flat, planed shapes.

There’s some­thing to take note of — it’s the nudity of some of her fig­ures. She puts them in dan­ger but giv­ing them no armor to pro­tect them­selves against the ani­mals and of the vast land she’s cre­ated. They must fend for them­selves, and do a pretty keen job at it (so far!).

All images via her Flickr.

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bárbara malagoli martino

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

Both humor­ous and mor­bid, Bár­bara Malagoli Mar­tino illus­trates girls and women, in a sort of cross between Japan­ese Hara­juku and a Lolita.

I like the spin that’s put on Bárbara’s illus­tra­tions. They depict exu­ber­ance and super­flu­ous­ness, using pas­tels and col­ors so sweet that it’s sac­cha­rine. Out­fit­ted with lace-up boots, cups of tea and pal­ing around with uni­corns, there is, at the same time, a sense of dis­ap­point­ment or some­thing awry. Dis­mem­ber­ment, black tears, skulls — all of these things are also present amongst the sweet.


A lot of draw­ings that I like are done in a Mole­skin, to which I say “great job!” to Bár­bara. My sketch­books are never that com­posed. Her port­fo­lio also includes shoe design, street art, apparel and acces­sory design. These things are a bit more unas­sum­ing than her draw­ings and paint­ings, but still delight­ful nonethe­less. I love her painted shoes!

All images via her Flickr

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colin stewart

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

Colin Stew­art is a very recent col­lege grad­u­ate; the lat­est entry on his blog details pic­tures of a sum­mer degree show at his school. I love the approach of his col­lages. They are frag­mented and visu­ally jarring.

The flow and rhythm to Colin’s work is really what attracted me to it. Through his blog, you can see a bit of his process — he seems to assem­ble some parts of his of his col­lages, but also gives him­self the free­dom to arrange and add sup­port­ing pieces if necessary.

Peo­ple in Colin’s work aren’t “pretty” per say– their abstrac­tion exag­ger­ates their fea­tures and dis­torts their body parts. There is some­thing beau­ti­ful about it — it’s all in the shapes Colin has used and the way they have their own role in defin­ing his lan­guage. The same can be said about his choice of paper. Each paper cor­re­sponds with a func­tion within the com­po­si­tion — whether it be per­son, place, or thing.

All images via his website/blog.

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luke fenech

Thursday, August 12th, 2010

Luke Fenech wants to tell new sto­ries in unex­pected ways. His work is a push and pull as he pairs draw­ing with col­lage — cre­ation vs. appropriation.

Luke uses tex­tured papers that dic­tate a major­ity of his color choices, as well as com­po­si­tional ones. There’s a chal­lenge in work­ing with mate­ri­als that already have been cre­ated — you’re lim­ited, in a way, as some­thing has already been decided for you; it could already have a story. I think it’s what makes Luke’s work so great — he uses things in an unex­pected man­ner and gives cutouts and tex­tures a dif­fer­ent meaning.

Using paper in new ways coin­cides with the con­tent of his work. There is a push and pull of abstract and rep­re­sen­ta­tion. Through­out each image that Luke cre­ates, there are ele­ments that we can all iden­tify, as well and dis­torted shapes and col­ors to throw our eyes off.

All images via his web­site.

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jing wei

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

Jing Wei is a Brook­lynite inter­ested in print­mak­ing, and most of her images are the prod­uct of the wood­cut tech­nique.

Styl­is­ti­cally, I enjoy look­ing at her cho­sen tech­nique, with all its imper­fec­tions and the way the color lays. Because some of the ink actu­ally soaks into the wood­cut sur­face, the color is slightly less vibrant than pure ink pulled directly onto the paper. It causes Jing’s images to be a bit washed out, a bit of a throw back to them.

I love the odd­ity that exists in Jing’s work. It’s very sub­tle, and with most of her images you really need to look at them for a lit­tle while to fully take it all in. At times her draw­ings are a slightly mor­bid (other times just strange), but it’s what really draws me to her work.


All images via her web­site. Check out her blog for the lat­est news as well as work in progress.

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brecht vanderbroucke

Thursday, August 5th, 2010

Brecht Van­der­brouke often infuses his paint­ings with a slice of life. A slice of life, how­ever, that has gone awry, some­times trag­i­cally so.

It’s not always for the worse, but often what Brecht’s sub­jects are endur­ing is dis­com­fort– whether it be phys­i­cal or emo­tion. Some of Brecht’s paint­ings deal with gen­eral awk­ward­ness, like not say­ing the right thing (espe­cially on the inter­net! Oh the human­ity). Other times, he takes it over the top and paints for us grue­some scenes with mutants, spir­its, and faulty machin­ery. Paired with his color choices and media, Brecht’s work is a bit dark, and com­ments on the idea of nos­tal­gia and social norms, ref­er­enc­ing to us things familiar.

All images via his Flickr.

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daniel lachenmeier

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

Daniel Lachen­meier is an illustrator/designer liv­ing and work­ing in Basel. He uses col­lage as a way to illus­trate and express his point of view.

Daniel doesn’t always use pho­tographs in his work, but when he does, they are used rather seam­lessly. It’s obvi­ous that the pho­tog­ra­phy comes from dif­fer­ent sources. Instead of this being appar­ent, Daniel manip­u­lates every­thing in such a way that the color story is con­sis­tent, giv­ing a feel­ing of cohesion.

The play of scale is some­thing I enjoy see­ing in Daniel’s illus­tra­tions. Often times men in his illus­tra­tions hover over build­ings and trees, their anonymity pre­served with Daniel’s care­ful removal of their faces. There is a feel­ing of lone­li­ness that I asso­ciate with this, a shame­ful­ness — the idea of seen but not seen.


All images via his web­site.

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owen gatley

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

Owen Gat­ley is a UK-based Illus­tra­tor who has a really great way of mak­ing his graphite draw­ings full of impact.

Owen’s port­fo­lio includes some color, but I am really inter­ested in his graphite draw­ings. There is a bit of nos­tal­gia for me; when I see pen­cil draw­ings with knights and beasts, I am reminded of draw­ing dur­ing my younger years. And, appar­ently, I am not far off from Owen — dur­ing an inter­view with The Work­ing Proof, Owen says that as a boy, he was obsessed with King Arthur and The Knights of the Round Table. His draw­ings come from a sim­i­lar place.

Have you heard of The Work­ing Proof? If not — it’s a great cause. Each print to be sold on the site pairs with a char­ity of the artist’s choice, donat­ing 15% of the sale to that cause. Owen cur­rently has The Slay­ing of the Beast for sale.

All images via his blog.

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tim gough

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

Another artist on the east­ern US seaboard, Tim Gough has been liv­ing and work­ing in Philadel­phia the past eight years as both a designer and art director.

Tim is influ­enced by the process of screen print­ing (color sep­a­ra­tions, off­set images) and mid-century graph­ics. These things are very evi­dent in his work. Even when he’s using gouache, there are flat appli­ca­tions of color, with some dry brush­ing to accent — it’s extremely rem­i­nis­cent of illus­tra­tions from the mid 20th cen­tury. The ges­tures of his sub­jects and flat depic­tion of space is extremely effec­tive in con­vey­ing a bold and play­ful message.

Tim cre­ates a limited-edition zine, which I had the plea­sure of thumb­ing through at Giant Robot LA. To phys­i­cally hold the zine is really sat­is­fy­ing — the pages are weighty and I loved run­ning my fin­gers across the ink. This, of course was all com­pli­mented by the high qual­ity of Tim’s work.

All images via his web­site.

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