Amelia’s Magazine | Billbored highlights


Illustration by Leinz

The above scene probably wasn’t too far off how things looked during those first few days after the election, information pills as talks between Nick Clegg and David Cameron opened and a five-day negotiation period ensued. This image is just one of the many political slogans designed by an array of artists, which were projected onto a number of London landmarks during the election campaign.

Billbored’ – launched by POLLOCKS – is an art collective, spearheaded by artist and curator Josef Valentino, who described the project as a viral art initiative aiming to empower people: “The political parties aren’t inspiring us, so we will have to inspire ourselves.”

Featuring initial designs from several artists including M.I.A, Pete Fowler, The Futureheads, Anthony Burrill and Robert Montgomery, this creative venture aimed to encourage and empower general members of the public to develop their own ‘Billbored’ campaigns, showing their personal vision for change.


Illustration by M.I.A.; photography by Cakehead Loves Evil

The submitted visuals were then projected onto the front of key London buildings and structures, including the Tate Modern and Canary Wharf during and after the election period by a team of guerrilla projectionists, gathering support and encouraging further online activity. They were also made available via social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

As David Cameron warms up the bed at No 10 and the campaign draws to a close, we take a look at some of the most eye-catching projections during the election period, providing us with an alternative take on UK politics…


Illustrated by Leinz


Visual by The Futureheads


Visual by Sarah Maple


Visual by Riot Art


Illustration by Neville Brody


Visual by Konrad Wyrebek


Photography by Annabel Staff


Illustration by Josef Valentino; photography by Cakehead Loves Evil


Visual by Hayden Kays; photography by Cakehead Loves Evil


Illustration by Dave Anderson; photography by Cakehead Loves Evil

Categories ,Anthony Burrill, ,Billbored, ,Cakehead Loves Evil, ,Canary Wharf, ,Dave Anderson, ,David Cameron, ,Election, ,Facebook, ,guerrilla, ,Hayden Kays, ,Josef Valentino, ,Kat Phan, ,Konrad Wyrebek, ,M.I.A, ,Neville Brody, ,Nick Clegg, ,Pete Fowler, ,POLLOCKS, ,Riot Art, ,Robert Montgomery, ,Sarah Maple, ,Tate Modern, ,the futureheads, ,twitter

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Amelia’s Magazine | Billbored highlights


Illustration by Leinz

The above scene probably wasn’t too far off how things looked during those first few days after the election, as talks between Nick Clegg and David Cameron opened and a five-day negotiation period ensued. This image is just one of the many political slogans designed by an array of artists, which were projected onto a number of London landmarks during the election campaign.

Billbored’ – launched by POLLOCKS – is an art collective, spearheaded by artist and curator Josef Valentino, who described the project as a viral art initiative aiming to empower people: “The political parties aren’t inspiring us, so we will have to inspire ourselves.”

Featuring initial designs from several artists including M.I.A, Pete Fowler, The Futureheads, Anthony Burrill and Robert Montgomery, this creative venture aimed to encourage and empower general members of the public to develop their own ‘Billbored’ campaigns, showing their personal vision for change.


Illustration by M.I.A.; photography by Cakehead Loves Evil

The submitted visuals were then projected onto the front of key London buildings and structures, including the Tate Modern and Canary Wharf during and after the election period by a team of guerrilla projectionists, gathering support and encouraging further online activity. They were also made available via social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

As David Cameron warms up the bed at No 10 and the campaign draws to a close, we take a look at some of the most eye-catching projections during the election period, providing us with an alternative take on UK politics…


Illustrated by Leinz


Visual by The Futureheads


Visual by Sarah Maple


Visual by Riot Art


Illustration by Neville Brody


Visual by Konrad Wyrebek


Illustration by Annabel Staff; photography by Cakehead Loves Evil


Illustration by Josef Valentino; photography by Cakehead Loves Evil


Visual by Hayden Kays; photography by Cakehead Loves Evil


Illustration by Dave Anderson; photography by Cakehead Loves Evil



Categories ,Anthony Burrill, ,Billbored, ,Cakehead Loves Evil, ,Canary Wharf, ,Dave Anderson, ,David Cameron, ,Election, ,Facebook, ,guerrilla, ,Hayden Kays, ,Josef Valentino, ,Kat Phan, ,Konrad Wyrebek, ,M.I.A, ,Neville Brody, ,Nick Clegg, ,Pete Fowler, ,POLLOCKS, ,Riot Art, ,Robert Montgomery, ,Sarah Maple, ,Tate Modern, ,the futureheads, ,twitter

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Amelia’s Magazine | An interview with photographer Andrew Meredith

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Havana, buy information pills Cuba 2009

How do you define good travel photography? I’m not sure what other people think but for me, it’s an image that beckons with its infusion of colours, seduces with its ambience and caresses with an intriguing subject matter. It’s not so much about capturing something divinely exotic as it is about viewing an unfamiliar and mystical part of the world through the window of a photographer’s lens. I’ve always been allured by such landscapes which is why I recently found myself trekking across London on a constipated District Line in the blistering heat, to check out photographer Andrew Meredith’s new exhibition, ‘Excursions’.

I came across Andrew’s work a few months ago when I was writing up my Pete Fowler interview, which he kindly provided the images for. A nosy parker by nature, I couldn’t help but Google stalk him. The search results threw up an impressive website, with an even more impressive portfolio.


Santiago, Chile 2008

Counting big names like Selfridges, Chanel and Anya Hindmarch as his clients, The Falmouth College of Art graduate has worked on numerous projects, including one entitled ‘The Slaughtermen’ for OnOffice Magazine, featuring a day in a life of an abattoir worker. This subsequently led to Andrew winning the 2008 ‘Best in Book’ Category for the Creative Review’s Photography Annual. Amongst other photography award nominations, Andrew’s credits include Kanye West’s Late Orchestration album cover and his work has been featured in The New York Times, Vogue Russia and Frame Magazine amongst several other well-known magazine titles.


Santiago, Chile 2008

Having exhibited at galleries across London over the past eight years, Andrew’s latest project, ‘Excursions’, spans two years’ of travels across the Americas and the Caribbean. Now before you start visualising cheesy smiles in front of Machu Picchu, bottom shuffling down Chichen Itza or staring moodily into the distance with a vintage Cohiba in the Plaza de la Revolución a la Che, the photographer has decidedly taken a less conventional approach by capturing less familiar, deserted and occasionally dilapidated landscapes in favour of popular picture perfect landmarks.

Describing the exhibition’s theme, Andrew explains: “Excursions is a photographic journey through Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Cuba and America to document every day scenes that are far removed from our own. The route I took was mainly by road, impulsive and unplanned and avoiding all the obvious tourist traps along the way.”

The result is an honest and raw photographic essay that pitches the beauty of nature amongst rugged urban landscapes. Having developed a deep bond with Chile, Andrew will also be auctioning signed and framed images of the Santiago stills, with all proceeds going towards the Global Givings Relief Fund for Earthquake in Chile to help rebuild regions that were hit hardest by the earthquake earlier this year.

On a balmy summer evening, we caught up with the photographer at a private view of his exhibition to find out more about his travel encounters…


Santiago, Chile 2008

Your new exhibition is entitled ‘Excursions’. Is there any particular reason why South America is the focal point of these excursions?
I originally went to Chile for my friend Erwin’s wedding in Santiago, but couldn’t help feeling excited about exploring the city. It reminded me of scenes from Alec Soth’s book ‘Dog Days in Bogata’ where he finds himself in Colombia’s capital, waiting to adopt his first child. As he found himself with time on his hands, he decided to document his surroundings as a future reminder of his new daughter’s birthplace.

Based on this idea, I too felt compelled to start documenting the trip and pretty soon we started going off further south of Santiago to places like Chiloe, Pucon, Osorno, Villarrica and Temuco. The fact it was South America was a complete accident; I was merely a traveler passing through. We went off the beaten track and immersed ourselves in the exploration, finding skeletons in forests and tiny villages along the way as well as those impressive cityscapes too. We had some time to fly out to Buenos Aires where I found other types of landscape, greyer than in Chile – a lot more concrete and crumbly. It struck me that the further we went, the more differences we were exposed to and before my eyes, a project started to unravel and evolve the further we traveled.


Buenos Aires, Argentina 2008

Did you literally stumble across your subjects or did you have an idea of what you wanted to shoot beforehand?
I had no preconceptions about Chile and Argentina. I had seen some beautiful holiday pictures taken in the southern parts of the countries, but they were never the kind of images I would like to have captured myself. What I found most interesting were the ramshackle and crumbly parts of the city, with power cables overflowing to the far corners of the buildings. That impressed me the most in a downtrodden dirty kind of way!

Where Cuba was concerned, we all have stereotypical ideas of what Havana looks like; the fine 1950s cars, gents smoking cigars, and a city that is crumbling faster then one can refurbish – I wanted to avoid all of that. My first night in Havana ended up being in this huge hotel which was pretty horrible. However, at about midnight when I looked out of the window, there was this incredible view of darkness with vibrant streams of light blazing through it. It was a beautiful moment as the night sky appeared as if it were on fire.


Pucon, Chile 2008

Your photos are mainly of landscapes opposed to people – was this a conscious decision?
I get a real sense of calm from observing landscapes and cityscapes. Being able to view it from up high above, looking down is endlessly interesting to me. At that distance, you cannot see people’s faces or their problems; all you can see are things moving around in the distance unaware that they are being photographed. I guess I’m sort of a voyeur, although not in a pervy sense! There was definitely an element of escapism for me around capturing images of landscapes. Hopefully through viewing my work, my audience might also join me in feeling that way too.

You mentioned that you wanted to avoid tourist traps – other then the landscapes being less recognisable, what were you hoping to portray in these photographs?
As a tourist, you are often only shown certain things. As a result, I end up feeling as if I’m being led around on a lead most of the time. I don’t like the idea of tours only passing by the attractions which people assume you’d be most interested to see. By avoiding all the tours and tourist traps, I was able to encounter landscapes less manipulated by mankind, which was much more appealing to me. My surroundings seemed to possess a purer beauty.


Tulum, Mexico 2009

Were there any challenges you faced whilst shooting abroad?
The first few days in Havana were incredibly hard work where everyone just seemed to be after your money. I guess it comes with being a tourist but I experienced this more in Havana than anywhere else I’ve ever been. I know that people just need the money so they can work towards a better life than what the Communist government will hand to them but it felt abusive at times. I just knew we had to get away from there and go further afield to avoid the tourism.

Other obvious challenges were language barriers and differences in culture. I have a basic grasp of Spanish so I could get by some of the time. Luckily I have a few fluent Spanish speaking friends who were able to help me along the way, although mostly they were useful for teaching me offensive Spanish phrases and swear words!

Was there a country in South America which really stood out during your travels? If so – why?
Most of the countries I shot during this project were so different. For example, Tulum in Mexico was initially like a paradise until you walked a mile around the coast to find, what seemed like, an invisible gate to a much more deprived and semi-built landscape. There were dirty beaches with truck tyres and rubbish washed up on the sand and shelters abandoned half-way through being built.

Overall, my favourite country was Chile. It was my inspiration for the whole project and I saw some wonderful places and met some amazing people. It gave me access to some of the most impressive landscapes I’ve ever captured due to the sheer diversity and scale. Another reason for it holding a special place in my heart is the fact that I was able to see and document Chile before the earthquake in February and it saddens me to think of the landscape being so different now. I feel incredibly strongly about trying to give something back to the people and the landscape that allowed me to capture those images in the first place, which is why some of the stills will be available for auction.


Santiago, Chile 2008

What’s next for you?
I would love to explore other South American countries such as Brazil, Bolivia, Venezuela, Guyana, Peru and the Falkland Islands. The next chapter of ‘Excursions’ will happen at some point.

The next place on my list though that I am keen to visit has got to be Hong Kong. I love the landscape, the tall buildings, the light, the thick air and the density. Running alongside this, I would also like to visit the Svalbard Islands deep in the Arctic Circle, miles off the Norwegian coast. It’s the most northern town in the world and one of the least populated places in the world. I think I can draw on some pretty interesting contrasts between Hong Kong and Svalbard…

‘Excursions’ by Andrew Meredith is running until 10th July at The Riverside Studios, Crisp Road, London W6 9RL.

A very limited edition, signed and framed Santiago, Chile 2008 portrait will be autioned with all proceeds going to Global Givings Relief Fund for the Earthquake in Chile. For more information, see here.

All photographs courtesy of Andrew Meredith.

Categories ,Alec Soth, ,Andrew Meredith, ,Anya Hindmarch, ,Arctic Circle, ,Argentina, ,Bolivia, ,brazil, ,Buenos Aires, ,chanel, ,Che, ,Chichen Itza, ,chile, ,Chiloe, ,Cohiba, ,Creative Review, ,Cuba, ,Dog Days in Bogota, ,Falkland Islands, ,Falmouth College of Art, ,Frame Magazine, ,Global Givings Relief Fund, ,Guyana, ,Havana, ,Hong Kong, ,Kanye West, ,Kat Phan, ,Manchu Picchu, ,mexico, ,New York Times, ,OnOffice Magazine, ,Osorno, ,Peru, ,Pete Fowler, ,Plaza del la Revolucion, ,Pucon, ,Santiago, ,Selfridges, ,Svalbard, ,Temuco, ,The Slaughtermen, ,Tulum, ,Venezuela, ,Villarrica, ,Vogue Russia

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Amelia’s Magazine | An interview with The Cabinet of Living Cinema’s Rob Parkinson


Courtesy of The Cabinet of Living Cinema

The cinema has certainly evolved since the early twentieth century when the first silent black and white film appeared on our screens, thumb accompanied by a finely dressed man tinkling the ivories at a piano. In stark contrast to these humble beginnings, cure we seem to live in an age now where the flashier we can get with our Dolby Digital sound and 3D, more about the better. So where do we go from here in terms of creating a more enriching cinematic experience?

The answer in short is: live film-score performance (or perhaps adding a modern twist to the concept of the old dude sitting behind the piano). As part of the Becks Vier Music Inspires Art UK Tour, The Cabinet of Living Cinema, in collaboration with Future Shorts, is fusing the worlds of live music and cinema across England on their Cabinet Tour 2010. The Tour features some of the most innovative short films of recent years along with surrealist experiments, Czech claymation, Russian animated oddities, British Transport films and other obscure masterpieces from the last century.


Courtesy of The Cabinet of Living Cinema

Founded by Rob Parkinson and Kieron Maguire in 2007, The Cabinet of Living Cinema is an artistic initiative, providing artists with a platform to showcase their film and music… together. By blending live music performance with short films ranging from rarely-seen animation to the avant-garde, the result is the creation of a “living cinema” experience.

Currently on tour in the UK, I managed to track down one half of the brains behind The Cabinet of Living Cinema, Rob Parkinson, to quiz him about an old idea given a brand new makeover…

How did The Cabinet of Living Cinema come into being?
Future Shorts asked us to rescore the music live to some short films in 2007 and it went down very well. So, we went on to play major UK venues on the Future Cinema tour. At this point, for us it was a realisation that a new way to present performance was an important thing and something to explore.

What has been the general response to your work so far?
The audience comes towards us after a show, of whom most are either really into film or music, or both (who isn’t?). We have a lot of conversations with our audience.


Courtesy of The Cabinet of Living Cinema

How do you go about commissioning films for the project?
We work with the film-makers, they submit work, and we perform the music live. They tend to appreciate the platform. We also always try to feature cutting edge directors and Future Shorts are instrumental in our film selection and commissioning.

What do you look out for in particular in work that is submitted for consideration?
Work that inspires. We spend a lot of time watching short films, looking for potential material. We generally sit watching with instruments at hand; it could be said that the films choose us when we all reach for instruments at the same time.

What do you think is lacking from the current cinema-goers experience?
A lack of understanding of where films originated from. For example (Jan) Sjvankmajer pioneered the claymation and stop-motion technology, but it’s only a handful of people who know about the impact he had on modern day cinema.

In your mind, what cinematic experience do you want your audience to walk away with after they have been to one of your shows?
To have experienced something different and unusual. 3D is big at the moment and maybe we are the 3D of the film-score world. I’d like to think our audience walks away with a soundtrack to wherever they go next.


Still from ‘Ballad of a Broken Vow’ by Carla Mackinnon for The Cabinet of Living Cinema

Tell us about The Cabinet Tour 2010 and Future Shorts collaborative.
The tour has been amazing; cool people, cool bands and excellent audiences. We’re lucky that we see familiar people that are touring the same venues as us and are able to share our energy. It’s a good, positive vibe amongst the artists.

Regarding Future Shorts, they are pioneers who have whole-heartedly supported our vision and are a wealth of inspiration.

What can we expect to see on The Cabinet Tour?
Beautifully directed films, amazing animation, musicians working on a different level, instrument swapping, happy accidents and bubble wrap (it’s perfect for making the sound of the sea).

What has been the most exciting project that you have worked on to date and why?
Hmmm, tricky…We performed at Fabric in 2007 in association with Future Shorts. The space was set out with old-school cinema seats, front to back. We played a few films through and people started to stand up, it was very emotional, there were tears.

Since then there have been many exciting moments, but that’s the thing with film and what we do. It’s all about the moment. To say a particular gig or event is more important than a specific moment isn’t appropriate in our world.


Still from ‘Ballad of a Broken Vow’ by Carla Mackinnon for The Cabinet of Living Cinema

Who is the most exciting live cinema guest you have worked with and why?
Without a doubt: The Paper Cinema. They are a hand-drawn paper puppetry live projected theatre show…and they are amazing.

How do you see Cabinet of the Living Cinema evolving?
New film-makers submitting their work for us to rescore. That’s where it’s at. A friend of mine strapped a waterproof camera to the front of his surfboard and went out to sea for a couple of hours. The resulting film was amazing, which we use as the backdrop to all our gigs. We want more!

What’s next on the Cabinet of the Living Cinema agenda?
Music and film festivals including Larmer Tree, FAIF ISFF and The Big Chill. We are also performing rescores to feature length films over August in London and very importantly, again, we are currently looking for new film-makers to submit work, so we can dedicate an event to new and up-and-coming talent due for performance in Autumn 2010.

In partnership with leading film pioneers Future Shorts, The Cabinet of Living Cinema bring live scores and animation to cities across England, including Leeds, Sheffield, Liverpool, Portsmouth, Bristol and Bournemouth on their Cabinet Tour 2010 throughout June, July and August. For more information, see here.

Categories ,3D, ,Becks Vier Music Inspires Art, ,British Transport films, ,Czech claymation, ,Dolby Digital, ,fabric, ,FAIF ISFF, ,Future Cinema Tour, ,Future Shorts, ,Jan Sjvankmajer, ,Kat Phan, ,Kieron Maguire, ,Larmer Tree, ,Rob Parkinson, ,The Big Chill, ,The Cabinet of Living Cinema, ,The Paper Cinema

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Amelia’s Magazine | A review of Ctrl.Alt.Shift’s latest venture, “Dear Diary”


Dan Eldon’s visual diaries; courtesy of Kathy Eldon

At some point in your life, cost you may have kept a diary, capsule pouring into it all of your deepest and darkest thoughts; the ones that you felt were too embarrassing or inappropriate to say aloud. My experience of reading old diaries is always toe-curling, but amusing as I struggle to make sense of why I cared so much about some things to write about them (for example, “loaf of bread head guy” who I adored from afar featured regularly in my diaries for a while – don’t ask!). As much as I would like to say that my diary entries were highly interesting, intelligent, deep and profound, most of them are sleep-inducing and consist of a type of written diarrhea. Thankfully, this is not the case at Cltr.Alt.Shift’s new exhibition, “Dear Diary”.

Dear Diary” is a new project launched by the youth anti-poverty charity to explore the art of diary keeping, taking participants on an inspirational and reflective journey, through the private pages of young individuals across the globe. The exhibition is housed under a funky t-shirt shop in Covent Garden in an intimate space, bringing together several diary collections ranging from Nirvana frontman and lyricist Kurt Cobain, to the stunning visual diaries of Dan Eldon, a young and promising photojournalist who was killed on the front line by an angry mob in Mogadishu, aged only 22.


Dan Eldon’s visual diaries; courtesy of Kathy Eldon

The room is divided into seven exhibits where on entry, you are confronted by four portraits of Eldon’s work, each infused with vivid, bold colours; a stark contrast to the bare white walls. The first image I encountered was the profile of a young, elegant looking tribeswoman wearing an intricate-looking traditional headdress, set against a backdrop of vibrant oranges and pinks. What I found most intriguing about this visual is that it had been signed with “Love and kisses, Angela” and “Love Maria”, and I was curious to know who these woman were. Had they been part of Eldon’s life at some stage and if so, how would their own diaries have read after his death?

Another one of Eldon’s portraits which had a gripping effect on me was that of four faded pictures in what appears to be a group of friends on a camping trip, smiling and chatting happily amongst each other, mounted on a map of Tanzania’s national parks. On closer viewing, the outlines of what appears to be three people – sketched with thick graphite pencil onto grainy beige/orange-coloured paper – are superimposed onto each of the original photos, as if they are joining the group but are separated through their apparent difference in physicality. A sentence is scrawled across the bottom of the map reading: “Dedicated to all 3 who lost their lives during the dramatic escape from Mikumi Nat Park”, providing us with a glimpse of the harsh reality of civil warfare, to which Eldon perished.


Kenya to the UK: Secrets and Struggles Diary Wall (photography by George Ramsay)

I was deeply moved by some of the diary excerpts displayed on the diary wall, written by teenage Kenyans living in extreme poverty and political instability. Although many of the entries were simplistic and occasionally poorly structured, the diarists’ basic descriptions painted a vivid and poignant image of the future that they longed for: “It’s also my hope in future this kind of thing will never happen again coz it also took death to many of my friends and also the separation of my beau and since then we have never communicated which made me so lonely”. Other diary entries detail the violence around elections and the hardship that economic deprivation brings: “…Our family made up of 11, it was hard to grow up due to poverty. It was hard and difficult to study”.


Audio diaries with images above audio decks by Kenyan conservationalist and playboy diarist, Peter Beard (photography by George Ramsay)

Aware that I am painting quite a grim and depressing picture of the exhibition, I assure you that this exhibition is not just a collection of doom and gloom. The audio diaries present a more eclectic mix of personal accounts, ranging from the inspirational to hilarious. Of these, the most compelling piece was of a courageous 19 year old South African girl called Thembi who broke the silence about living with AIDS at a time when it was still a taboo subject in South Africa; she eventually went on to share her story with more than 50 million people. A highly amusing reading from comedian Richard Herring about his painful years as a chubby brainiac, who at the time believed he would be a virgin forever, also makes for an entertaining listen.


Diary library with comfy sofa chair (photography by George Ramsay)

In a far corner of the show room, there is an area for quiet reflection with an extremely comfortable chair which I made my home for a good part of the evening, taking advantage of the diary library, which included entries belonging to Samuel Pepys, Frida Kahlo, Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love and several volumes of Anaïs Nin’s journals. On the top shelf (no, not what you are thinking), there were two books available for documenting your own thoughts, which people had written in throughout the course of the evening, with one refined gentleman expressing that he was looking forward to going home and banging his wife! Nice.


Irving Finkel’s collection of diaries (photography by George Ramsay)

Other exhibition highlights include the unpublished diaries of ordinary people from the 19th century displayed in a glass case, collected by the British Library’s Irving Finkel over the years. Finkel would often search for these items at secondhand shops and house clearances, believing that they hold the key to our histories through the casual documentation of one’s environment at the time. The child in me gravitated towards the Children’s Pocket Annual and Birthday Book of an eight year old girl and scouts’ diaries with stained pages and frayed edges, detailing the mundane routines of school work, bath days and playing with wolf cubs (well maybe playing with wolf cubs wouldn’t have been so mundane).

Ctrl.Alt.Shift’sDear Diary” is an intelligent and thought-provoking initiative, which takes a concept that we are all familiar with to help us understand and relate with others. Through encountering a range of diaries, including that of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, a boy living with Tourette’s in the US and teenagers living in the slums in Kenya, our attention converges on the fact that whatever our language and ethnicity, the expression of thought transcends cultural boundaries. Although we may be divided geographically and by our heritage, fundamentally the feelings that we experience are the same.


Limited edition diary with cover illustrated by Alexa Chung

As part of the project, Ctrl.Alt.Shift have also launched a limited edition diary, with a cover illustrated by Alexa Chung featuring extracts from Courtney Love, Daniel Johnson and Anaïs Nin, which you can buy here. All proceeds raised from the ‘Dear Diary’ project go towards Maji Na Ufanisi, working with young people from the slums of Nairobi.

For more information about location and opening times, check out our listings here.


Excerpt from Courtney Love’s diaries; courtesy of Courtney Love

Categories ,Anais Nin, ,British Library, ,Cltr.Alt.Shift, ,Courtney Love, ,Covent Garden, ,Dan Eldon, ,Daniel Johnston, ,Dear Diary, ,Frida Kahlo, ,Gallery Seven, ,Irving Finkel, ,Kat Phan, ,Kenya, ,Kurt Cobain, ,Maji Na Ufanisi, ,Mikumi National Park, ,Mogadishu, ,Nairobi, ,nirvana, ,Richard Herring, ,Samuel Pepys, ,Scouts, ,South Africa, ,Super Superficial, ,Thembi, ,Tourettes

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Amelia’s Magazine | A review of indie film Catfish

Amelia’s Compendium of Fashion-sm-Dem Collective
Amelia's Compendium of Fashion-cover

So, this the book is finally here and you should be able to find it at Tate Modern, health Magma, nurse Design Museum, Serpentine Gallery, Tatty Devine, Cornerhouse, Arnolfini and many other good independent book stores.

Tatty Devine Amelia's Compendium
Harriet of Tatty Devine takes receipt of her copies of Amelia’s Compendium of Fashion Illustration.

Amelia's Compendium Magma
On the shelves of Magma.

Or you can buy it online here for a reduced price and receive 12 unique Amelia’s Magazine postcards, plus a selection of bookmarks. This offer is EXCLUSIVE to my website. You can’t get these postcards anywhere else!

Amelia's Compendium postcards
Postcards come free with all orders of Amelia’s Compendium of Fashion Illustration made through this website.
Below are some pages from inside the book – which is the usual riot of colour and pattern for which I have become known.

The following up and coming fashion illustrators feature in Amelia’s Compendium of Fashion Illustration:
Abigail Daker, Abby Wright, Amy Martino, Andrea Peterson, Aniela Murphy, Antonia Parker, Bex Glover, Emma Block, Erica Sharp, Faye West, Gemma Milly, Jennifer Costello, Jenny Robins, Jo Cheung, Joana Faria, June Chanpoomidole, Katherine Tromans, Katie Harnett, Kellie Black, Krister Selin, Lesley Barnes, Lisa Stannard, Michelle Urvall Nyren, Naomi Law, Natasha Thompson, Natsuki Otani, Rachel de Ste Croix, Yelena Bryksenkova, Zarina Liew & Gareth A Hopkins.

The book features interviews with the following ethical fashion designers:
123 Bethnal Green Road, Ada Zanditon, Andrea Crews, Anja Hynynen, Beautiful Soul, By Stamo, Camilla Norrback, Christopher Raeburn, Ciel, Dem Collective, Edun, Emesha, Emma Ware, Fifi Bijoux, From Somewhere, Goodone, Gossypium, Henrietta Ludgate, Hetty Rose, Howies, Ivana Basilotta, Izzy Lane, Joanna Cave, Junky Styling, Little Glass Clementine, Lu Flux, Martina Spetlova, Maxjenny, Michelle Lowe-Holder, Minna, Nancy Dee, Nina Dolcetti, Noir, Noki, Oria, Partimi, People Tree, Pia Anjou, Prophetik, Romina Karamanea, Sägen, Satoshi Date, Tara Starlet, Ute Decker & Wilfried Pletzinger

Amelia's Compendium of Fashion-cover

So, pharmacy the book is finally here and you should be able to find it at Tate Modern, Magma, Design Museum, Serpentine Gallery, Tatty Devine, Cornerhouse, Arnolfini and many other good independent book stores.

Tatty Devine Amelia's Compendium
Harriet of Tatty Devine takes receipt of her copies of Amelia’s Compendium of Fashion Illustration.

Amelia's Compendium Magma
On the shelves of Magma.

Or you can buy it online here for a reduced price and receive 12 unique Amelia’s Magazine postcards, plus a selection of bookmarks. This offer is EXCLUSIVE to my website. You can’t get these postcards anywhere else!

Amelia's Compendium postcards
Postcards come free with all orders of Amelia’s Compendium of Fashion Illustration made through this website.

The following up and coming fashion illustrators feature in Amelia’s Compendium of Fashion Illustration:
Abigail Daker, Abby Wright, Amy Martino, Andrea Peterson, Aniela Murphy, Antonia Parker, Bex Glover, Emma Block, Erica Sharp, Faye West, Gemma Milly, Jennifer Costello, Jenny Robins, Jo Cheung, Joana Faria, June Chanpoomidole, Katherine Tromans, Katie Harnett, Kellie Black, Krister Selin, Lesley Barnes, Lisa Stannard, Michelle Urvall Nyren, Naomi Law, Natasha Thompson, Natsuki Otani, Rachel de Ste Croix, Yelena Bryksenkova, Zarina Liew & Gareth A Hopkins.

And…. the book features interviews with the following ethical fashion designers:
123 Bethnal Green Road, Ada Zanditon, Andrea Crews, Anja Hynynen, Beautiful Soul, By Stamo, Camilla Norrback, Christopher Raeburn, Ciel, Dem Collective, Edun, Emesha, Emma Ware, Fifi Bijoux, From Somewhere, Goodone, Gossypium, Henrietta Ludgate, Hetty Rose, Howies, Ivana Basilotta, Izzy Lane, Joanna Cave, Junky Styling, Little Glass Clementine, Lu Flux, Martina Spetlova, Maxjenny, Michelle Lowe-Holder, Minna, Nancy Dee, Nina Dolcetti, Noir, Noki, Oria, Partimi, People Tree, Pia Anjou, Prophetik, Romina Karamanea, Sägen, Satoshi Date, Tara Starlet, Ute Decker & Wilfried Pletzinger

Below are some pages from inside the book – which is the usual riot of colour and pattern for which I have become known.

Amelia's Compendium of Fashion-sm-From Somewhere
From Somewhere illustrated by Rachel de Ste Croix.

Amelia's Compendium of Fashion-sm-By Stamo
By Stamo illustrated by Krister Selin.

Amelia's Compendium of Fashion-sm-Christopher Raeburn
Christopher Raeburn illustrated by Gemma Milly.

Amelia's Compendium of Fashion-sm-Edun
Edun illustrated by Katherine Tromans.

Amelia's Compendium of Fashion-sm-Dem Collective
Dem Collective illustrated by Michelle Urvall Nyren.

Amelia's Compendium Aniela Murphy
Aniela Murphy’s pages in the content proofs.

Amelia's Compendium Antonia Parker
Antonia Parker’s pages in the content proofs.

Please note that I will not be posting any orders out until the 4th January 2011. Have a very merry Christmas!
Amelia's Compendium of Fashion-cover

So, diagnosis the book is finally here and you should be able to find it at Tate Modern, side effects Magma, cialis 40mg Design Museum, Serpentine Gallery, Tatty Devine, Cornerhouse, Arnolfini and many other good independent book stores.

Tatty Devine Amelia's Compendium
Harriet of Tatty Devine takes receipt of her copies of Amelia’s Compendium of Fashion Illustration.

Amelia's Compendium Magma
On the shelves of Magma.

Or you can buy it online here for a reduced price and receive 12 unique Amelia’s Magazine postcards, plus a selection of bookmarks. This offer is EXCLUSIVE to my website. You can’t get these postcards anywhere else!

Amelia's Compendium postcards
Postcards come free with all orders of Amelia’s Compendium of Fashion Illustration made through this website.

The following up and coming fashion illustrators feature in Amelia’s Compendium of Fashion Illustration:
Abigail Daker, Abby Wright, Amy Martino, Andrea Peterson, Aniela Murphy, Antonia Parker, Bex Glover, Emma Block, Erica Sharp, Faye West, Gemma Milly, Jennifer Costello, Jenny Robins, Jo Cheung, Joana Faria, June Chanpoomidole, Katherine Tromans, Katie Harnett, Kellie Black, Krister Selin, Lesley Barnes, Lisa Stannard, Michelle Urvall Nyren, Naomi Law, Natasha Thompson, Natsuki Otani, Rachel de Ste Croix, Yelena Bryksenkova, Zarina Liew & Gareth A Hopkins.

And…. the book features interviews with the following ethical fashion designers:
123 Bethnal Green Road, Ada Zanditon, Andrea Crews, Anja Hynynen, Beautiful Soul, By Stamo, Camilla Norrback, Christopher Raeburn, Ciel, Dem Collective, Edun, Emesha, Emma Ware, Fifi Bijoux, From Somewhere, Goodone, Gossypium, Henrietta Ludgate, Hetty Rose, Howies, Ivana Basilotta, Izzy Lane, Joanna Cave, Junky Styling, Little Glass Clementine, Lu Flux, Martina Spetlova, Maxjenny, Michelle Lowe-Holder, Minna, Nancy Dee, Nina Dolcetti, Noir, Noki, Oria, Partimi, People Tree, Pia Anjou, Prophetik, Romina Karamanea, Sägen, Satoshi Date, Tara Starlet, Ute Decker & Wilfried Pletzinger

Below are some pages from inside the book – which is the usual riot of colour and pattern for which I have become known.

Amelia's Compendium of Fashion-sm-From Somewhere
From Somewhere illustrated by Rachel de Ste Croix.

Amelia's Compendium of Fashion-sm-By Stamo
By Stamo illustrated by Krister Selin.

Amelia's Compendium of Fashion-sm-Christopher Raeburn
Christopher Raeburn illustrated by Gemma Milly.

Amelia's Compendium of Fashion-sm-Edun
Edun illustrated by Katherine Tromans.

Amelia's Compendium of Fashion-sm-Dem Collective
Dem Collective illustrated by Michelle Urvall Nyren.

Amelia's Compendium Aniela Murphy
Aniela Murphy’s pages in the content proofs.

Amelia's Compendium Antonia Parker
Antonia Parker’s pages in the content proofs.

Please note that I will not be posting any orders out until the 4th January 2011. Have a very merry Christmas!
Amelia's Compendium of Fashion-cover

So, thumb the book is finally here! You can find it at Tate Modern, Magma, Design Museum, Serpentine Gallery, Tatty Devine, Cornerhouse, Arnolfini and many other good independent book stores across the UK and by early 2011 around the world.

Tatty Devine Amelia's Compendium
Harriet of Tatty Devine takes receipt of her copies of Amelia’s Compendium of Fashion Illustration.

Amelia's Compendium Magma
On the shelves of Magma.

Or you can buy it online here for a reduced price and receive 12 unique Amelia’s Magazine postcards, plus a selection of bookmarks. This offer is EXCLUSIVE to my website. You can’t get these postcards anywhere else!

Amelia's Compendium postcards
Postcards come free with all orders of Amelia’s Compendium of Fashion Illustration made through this website.

The following up and coming fashion illustrators feature in Amelia’s Compendium of Fashion Illustration:
Abigail Daker, Abby Wright, Amy Martino, Andrea Peterson, Aniela Murphy, Antonia Parker, Bex Glover, Emma Block, Erica Sharp, Faye West, Gemma Milly, Jennifer Costello, Jenny Robins, Jo Cheung, Joana Faria, June Chanpoomidole, Katherine Tromans, Katie Harnett, Kellie Black, Krister Selin, Lesley Barnes, Lisa Stannard, Michelle Urvall Nyren, Naomi Law, Natasha Thompson, Natsuki Otani, Rachel de Ste Croix, Yelena Bryksenkova, Zarina Liew & Gareth A Hopkins.

And…. the book features interviews with the following ethical fashion designers:
123 Bethnal Green Road, Ada Zanditon, Andrea Crews, Anja Hynynen, Beautiful Soul, By Stamo, Camilla Norrback, Christopher Raeburn, Ciel, Dem Collective, Edun, Emesha, Emma Ware, Fifi Bijoux, From Somewhere, Goodone, Gossypium, Henrietta Ludgate, Hetty Rose, Howies, Ivana Basilotta, Izzy Lane, Joanna Cave, Junky Styling, Little Glass Clementine, Lu Flux, Martina Spetlova, Maxjenny, Michelle Lowe-Holder, Minna, Nancy Dee, Nina Dolcetti, Noir, Noki, Oria, Partimi, People Tree, Pia Anjou, Prophetik, Romina Karamanea, Sägen, Satoshi Date, Tara Starlet, Ute Decker & Wilfried Pletzinger

Below are some pages from inside the book – which is the usual riot of colour and pattern for which I have become known.

Amelia's Compendium of Fashion-sm-From Somewhere
From Somewhere illustrated by Rachel de Ste Croix.

Amelia's Compendium of Fashion-sm-By Stamo
By Stamo illustrated by Krister Selin.

Amelia's Compendium of Fashion-sm-Christopher Raeburn
Christopher Raeburn illustrated by Gemma Milly.

Amelia's Compendium of Fashion-sm-Edun
Edun illustrated by Katherine Tromans.

Amelia's Compendium of Fashion-sm-Dem Collective
Dem Collective illustrated by Michelle Urvall Nyren.

Amelia's Compendium Aniela Murphy
Aniela Murphy’s pages in the content proofs.

Amelia's Compendium Antonia Parker
Antonia Parker’s pages in the content proofs.

Please note that I will not be posting any orders out until the 4th January 2011. Have a very merry Christmas!

Image courtesy of Rogue

Initiating a relationship over the Internet is an age-old tale and I have friends who have successfully trodden this path, ed but not without some initial trepidation. There’s always the joke about boys being deluded about their height, cheapest often adding an inch or four to their profiles (or being axe-murderers), seek and girls uploading old photos when they were a good few pounds lighter (or being bunny boilers). But beyond the aesthetics, how much do you really know about your online confidante? And on the flipside, how far are you willing to stretch the truth to ensure that you are presenting yourself in the best light?

Produced by filmmaker Andrew Jarecki, who directed the brilliant docufilm “Capturing the Friedmans” in 2003, Catfish is the directorial feature film debut of Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost, who explore these themes, human psychology and the modern technological landscape as a medium for communication, closely following a ‘virtual’ relationship as it unfolds over Facebook and phone calls. Made with a budget of only around $30,000, the film was an unlikely hit at the Sundance Film Festival last year, which had audience members and critics alike hyperventilating with excitement.


Illustration courtesy of Avril Kelly

When I received my invite to the press screening, I was urged to read as little about Catfish as possible to avoid spoiling my experience of the film. As I would urge you to do the same, I can tell you that writing this review is going to prove difficult but here goes…

Filmed using a grainy handheld camera, the story revolves around the film’s protagonist, Nev Schulman, a young, charismatic, sleepy-eyed New-York based photographer who becomes involved, via Facebook, with an eight-year-old art prodigy named Abby in Michigan. Abby approaches Nev to ask for his permission to use a photograph for a painting and a fraternal relationship ensues between Nev and Abby, which becomes increasingly complex as Nev becomes involved with the rest of her family: Abby’s mother, Angela, and Abby’s attractive horse-riding, guitar-playing, party-loving 19-year-old sister, Megan, along with Megan’s intricate network of friends.  Needless to say, a less fraternal relationship develops between Nev and Megan and before we know it, they are “sexting”, amalgamating naked photos of themselves and speaking every night via the plethora of the networking tools that we have at our disposal today. Nothing, however, is quite as it seems as the film takes several unexpected twists and turns to reach a not entirely surprising yet poignant conclusion. 


Illustration courtesy of Avril Kelly

One of the film’s key strengths lies in Nev’s engaging hopeless romantic, drawing empathy from his viewers as we are taken on a journey of his evolving feelings for Megan and her family. Throughout the course of the film, we see Nev experience infatuation, doubt, anger, disappointment, betrayal and then sympathy – feelings of which are all doubtless familiar to us, whether in the virtual or real world. The way in which the film is shot, where Nev talks about his thoughts and feelings directly to the camera as if we were talking to a family member or a close friend (fitting really seeing as Schulman is Nev’s brother and Joost is one of his best friends), makes us feel as if we are sharing a very private experience with Nev, helping us to bond and identify with his character.

Where David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin’sThe Social Network” is about the creation of Facebook, Catfish is a film about the consequences of such creations, which may explain why its subject matter has resonated so strongly with audiences, seeing as approximately 5 billion of us across the globe are subscribed to a mobile phone contract and 500 million of us are active users of Facebook (although I exclude myself from the latter).


Illustration courtesy of Avril Kelly

At the risk of revealing too much, “Catfish” goes far deeper than simply being “another film about Facebook”. It throws up moral questions such as to what extent one can indulge in what superficially appears to be harmless innocent fantasies before we start to infringe on the wellbeing of others. This issue, however, is not strictly confined to the realms of an online environment, although it can be argued that modern technological advances, especially social networking, has made this deception somewhat easier to play out and sustain.

There has been much debate about the authenticity of “Catfish” and I for one am not completely convinced that we are not being taken for a ride, however, regardless of whether the movie is a hoax, Catfish is an absorbing, thought-provoking and affecting indie about hope, crushed dreams and the society that we live in where social media and modern technology provides a platform for our inner-narcissist, potential to deceive or desire to escape reality to a fictional world where life is more kind. In Joost’s own words, “Our profiles are a chance to present ourselves to the world in a way we can completely control – unlike face-to-face interaction”.

Read our exclusive interview with the director of Catfish, Henry Joost, here.

Catfish is currently showing at selected cinemas across the UK and available on DVD from today.  

Categories ,Aaron Sorkin, ,Andrew Jarecki, ,Ariel Schulman, ,Capturing the Friedmans, ,Catfish, ,David Fincher, ,Facebook, ,Henry Joost, ,Kat Phan, ,Nev Schulman, ,The Social Network

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Amelia’s Magazine | A review of the David LaChapelle exhibition, Rape of Africa

Transition Town football

David LaChapelle’s ‘Rape of Africa’, discount illustrated by Lisa Stannard.

I first discovered the deliciously decadent fantasy world of David LaChapelle as a spotty teenager when I used to flick through my stylish older sister’s copies of Vogue. His sexed-up, cialis 40mg over-the-top, information pills glitzy style and explosive colour schemes – which shamelessly celebrated glamour, popular culture and materialism – were mesmerising, especially to a shy thirteen year old whose most fashionable outfit was an all-in-one stone-washed denim number (this was the first time around when it wasn’t cool).

Over the years, in a fantastic plastic kind-of-way, I have grown to admire LaChapelle’s razor sharp aesthetic, despite the crass nature of some of his chosen themes. Amongst celebrity and fashion circles, he is a master when it comes to knowing what makes a pretty picture so when I heard that his first political show, controversially entitled ‘Rape of Africa’, had opened at Robilant and Voena in Mayfair, I bolted down to the gallery like a horse on speed to check out the kitsch king’s take on more serious affairs.

Having turned his attention to fine-art in recent years, LaChapelle’s latest work is an open critique of western consumerism, presented as a mash-up of Italian Renaissance art and his glossy signature style. The show lends its name to the centre-piece, a tribute to Botticelli’s ‘Venus and Mars’, with a modern day twist. At first glance the photograph features a regal and supine looking Naomi Campbell as Venus in elegant tribal attire with one breast exposed and a handsome semi-naked model, Caleb Lane, as Mars in a post-coital state, surrounded by young angelic boys. On closer examination the boys are carrying guns and Mars is casually resting a finger on a gold human remain, possibly an arm/leg bone, with gold hand grenades, treasures and a diamond-encrusted skull scattered beneath him, in contrast to the African Venus’s more modest surroundings of a goat and cockerel. Behind the opulence, a hole is blown through a neon-lit montage of ‘Sun Bleach’, an American-stylised brand of detergent, to reveal a war-torn landscape with several cranes busy at work, destroying what is left of the distressed land.

Make no mistake, this is LaChapelle’s unapologetic statement piece, drawing our attention to child soldiers, unethical gold and diamond mining, and the derogatory view of African women being viewed as an exotic commodity by Western cultures, as their homes and countries are ravaged for the consumer’s benefit.


David LaChapelle’s ‘American Jesus: Hold me, carry me boldly’, illustrated by Lisa Stannard.

LaChapelle continues in this vein using models in art history to point a finger at the world’s obsession with materialism. In the gallery’s library, a vibrant colour-infused piece streaked with flowing pale blue, yellow and pink ribbons explodes from between the bookshelves. Another photograph inspired by Botticelli, ‘The Birth of Venus’, depicts Venus’s emergence onto the eden-like landscape, looking serenely into the distance, flanked by two male admirers who replace the Zephyr wind-gods and Nymph in the original painting. On closer inspection, LaChapelle again highlights contemporary consumer society by drawing our attention to Venus’s bling footwear (aquamarine diamond-encrusted shoes), with her male admirers wearing gold Puma trainers and a diamante-encrusted fishnet vest, with a metallic blue Nike tick sprayed onto the barefoot of one of the men.

Perhaps the most controversial piece likely to cause offense is ‘Thy Kingdom Come’, an image depicting the pope sitting on a gold throne inside a grand cathedral atop of mounds of treasure troves filled with pearls and gold, with four bloodied naked bodies, bound, blindfolded and scattered beneath the valuables in various states of trauma.

Similarly, a triptych of Michael Jackson in various messiah and saint-like poses flirts with the viewer’s tolerance. The first photograph, entitled ‘American Jesus: Hold me, carry me boldly’, shows an illuminated Jesus sitting amongst a rugged forest landscape, carrying the dead body of Michael Jackson as his white, diamond-encrusted glove lies limply on the floor just beneath his hand. The subsequent panels present Jackson in a saint-like pose with a gold pocket watch and a white dove resting in his hand, standing alongside a female holy saint. The final panel shows Jackson as an Archangel with white feathered wings, contrasting with his black Thriller-style outfit with tears streaming from his eyes, as Jackson’s right foot stamps down authoratatively on the devil’s chest.


David LaChapelle’s ‘Archangel Michael’, illustrated by Lisa Stannard.

As I wandered around the gallery examining the photos, I found myself underwhelmed by LaChapelle’s rather uninventive, shallow and juvenile take on the various themes. Although the photos were distinctively LaChapelle in their refined visual quality, there was no intellectual interpretation required here, challenging you to think beyond what was presented. However, as I pondered further, I realised that it was actually me who was missing the point.

LaChapelle’s work has always been known to be bold and gaudy, compelling and repelling in equal measure, a formula which he uses to leave an imprint on your inner psyche. For example, ‘Rape of Africa’, viewed from afar is a stunning visual of beautiful colours portraying beautiful-looking people, commanding your attention; however, once you are drawn in, it presents you with a harsher reality, hammering on the door of your conscience. Thus, for the MTV and Twitter generation, LaChapelle may be more effective in using hard-hitting pop culture imagery to bring home the message to a much wider audience than, say a political activist might, through more traditional forms of communication.

Having made his name through photographing the rich and famous, many of whom epitomise the consumerist attitudes that he now criticises, this show is a brave and interesting turn for LaChapelle. As I stepped back out into my dull monochrome surroundings devoid of his magical splashes of colour, it gradually dawned on my inner cynic that the exhibition whiffed slightly of hypocrisy. Apart from the preparatory drawings for ‘Rape of Africa’ included in the exhibition, all of the other portraits are up for sale. How much was LaChapelle making from this show I wondered, and how much of that money was he planning on donating to African NGOs?

I guess whether you’re wearing jewels indirectly responsible for destroying a continent or producing meticulously crafted portraits about jewels indirectly destroying a continent, beauty always comes at a cost.

David LaChapelle: The Rape of Africa is currently on show at Robilant and Voena, First Floor, 38 Dover Street, London W1 until 25 May 2010 (robilantvoena.com/exhibitions).

Having spared the time to attend Mr LaChapelle’s exhibition and write a review of his work leading to increased exposure for him, Amelia’s Magazine had a bit of a nightmare experience with Robilant and Voena’s press office in trying to obtain images for this piece, which are apparently available on request (depending on who you are). So, in the absence of official images from the gallery (and to avoid having to deal with snooty, unhelpful people), we took the liberty of coming up with our own and a few more from the ‘LaChapelle Studio’ as seen below (all illustrations by Lisa Stannard).


Amanda Lepore


Angelina Jolie


Brittany Murphy


Cameron Diaz

Categories ,Archangel, ,Botticelli, ,Caleb Lane, ,David LaChapelle, ,Devil, ,Eden, ,Italian Renaissance, ,Jesus, ,Kat Phan, ,Materialism, ,Messiah, ,Michael Jackson, ,MTV, ,Naomi Campbell, ,NGO, ,Nike, ,Nymph, ,pop culture, ,popular culture, ,Puma, ,Rape of Africa, ,Robilant and Voena, ,Saint, ,The Birth of Venus, ,Tripych, ,twitter, ,Venus and Mars, ,vogue, ,Zephyr

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Amelia’s Magazine | An interview with American artist Matthew Rose


My situation (image courtesy of Matthew Rose)

Matthew Rose is an American artist living in Paris known for his 1, look 000 piece wall-to-wall collages. On viewing his work, purchase you can’t help but feel as if you are peering into the wrong end of a telescope; the objects look familiar yet distorted, eerie yet beautiful.

His abstract, artistic style presents a surreal and parallel world infused with vibrant colours where he often plays with an unusual fusion of subjects (and by this I mean a man with carrots for his head or a woman who is part-human, part-camera – pretty crazy stuff but in the most fantastic sense!).

For almost three decades, Matthew has been producing installations, which reinforce the connection between imagery and literature in art. His works – many of which are a composite of beautiful colours, visuals and text melting into one another – evoke the genres of 20th century surrealist artists, and several critics have cited his work as demonstrating a ‘dadaist exploration of sense and non-sense’.

Matthew’s installations have featured in galleries and museums across Europe, Asia and the United States, and his work has appeared in numerous books and magazines, including MASTERS: COLLAGE (Sterling Publishing/Lark Books, 2010) published recently.

His most notable art project to date, A Book About Death, showcased in New York’s Emily Harvey Foundation Gallery in September 2009. The show was a logistical feat involving thousands of artists from across the globe sending 500 artworks in the form of postcards to construct the exhibition. The beauty of the exhibition was that the end result was offered to one lucky visitor in the form of a book… for free. More than 18 exhibitions of A Book About Death have been staged worldwide, including The Queens Museum in New York, MuBE in São Paulo and MoMA Wales.


Private view invite (image courtesy of Matthew Rose and Orange Dot Gallery)

Matthew’s most recent project, Scared But Fresh, is a dislocated love story exploring the sense and non-sense, which I was lucky enough to catch at Orange Dot Gallery, a lovely new exhibition space in the heart of Bloomsbury. By his own admission, Matthew is interested in ‘creating works to see them for himself’ but as a by-product of his imagination, his mesmerising creations prompt the viewer to garner thoughts of their own.

After gate-crashing a Brown University reunion held at the gallery, where Matthew studied Semiotics in 1981, I managed to grab a quiet moment with the calm and composed artist before his alumni chums arrived, gaining a glimpse into the annals of the mind of a truly fascinating individual…

How old were you when you realised you wanted to be an artist?
I couldn’t have been more than six years old when my mother and aunt dragged me to The Brooklyn Museum to see Van Gogh. The lines went around the block and I couldn’t understand what the fuss was about; I was hungry, my feet hurt and being small, I was suffocating in this cloud of wool coats. Once inside the galleries, however, I caught my first glimpse of what has proven to be a very nourishing world… I stayed close to my mother and aunt for about 10 minutes but soon enough got lost (purposely) and quietly pushed my way through the crowds to get up close to Van Gogh’s brilliant colors, these vibrating landscapes – in particular, the painting he produced in the Arlesian sun, Almond Branches in Bloom (1890). It turned out to be one of the pieces he produced the year he died of a self-inflicted gun shot wound. I never forgot the color and intelligence behind this painting, and I slowly began to look for this “art experience” in my own.


Anglais (image courtesy of Matthew Rose)

What artists did you look up to when you were developing your artistic style?
Most artists I know were influenced by the early 20th century modernists – Picasso, Matisse, Malevich…then Duchamp and the Dadaists, the Surrealists, Pollock, de Kooning and then those who flavored the world we arrived in: Warhol, Johns, Rauschenberg. For me, probably folks like Hopper for his era and compositions and silence; and Cornell for his expansive internal universe, and mostly Ray Johnson, because he was a friend and teacher (as he was to thousands) and the way he worked. Since I mostly work in collage, I’m more prone to think in disparate images and texts, an old-fashioned multi-media stream of consciousness. I don’t have problems with dislocated images and lexical puzzles. Of course I don’t pretend that these artists are producing works of philosophy, but rather reflecting the cataclysm that stems from consciousness.

Your work often involves the use of collage – what led to this fascination and why do you like working in this particular abstract context?
Collage is just one of several mediums I work in. Over the years I’ve produced works/object in wax or wood, painting and drawing, and text pieces either as rubber stamp works (printing) or drawing the words. One of my interests is word as image, and collage permits me to combine words and images in a fairly rapid fashion. I tend to work super fast and produce series in a matter of days or weeks. I’m pretty obsessed once I get going and very little interferes with my process. I did a show some years ago called ‘Spelling With Scissors’, and this is my approach – combining literature (texts) with images. I have always discussed my aesthetic view as a form of reading.

What does working in collage allow you to express in ways that other forms of artistic expression cannot?
Speed. Strangeness. The wide array of material allows me to cover many ideas and compositional concepts in a short period of time. Painting plays a part in what I do, as does drawing and often these mediums come into play in a work. But collage is an approach to consciousness, and that, I think is the flux endpoint in my work. Most of the elements I use are found, and that, too, is an important part of my process. Seeing what the world washes up at my feet, the skidmarks of my time and place.


Scared But Fresh at Orange Dot Gallery (photography courtesy of Orange Dot Gallery)

What was the inspiration behind Scared But Fresh?
Scared But Fresh
is a love story. The works in the exhibition come together (in my mind, at least) to lay out a dislocated love story, a song about love with its insistent cacophony. I think if you look at the pieces in this exhibition, including the 12-piece collage on paper series, America, you’ll see sex, love and death (the staples of art making), you’ll discover heartache, lust, dread and all those angst-laden things that produce so much of the content of our lives. Or at least that’s the way I see it. Again, I produce these works to see them myself, to see what these odd elements produce in combination, and to perhaps understand what sort of stuff is moving around inside of me; that said, it’s not therapy, but rather an inquiry.

Why is the exhibition called Scared But Fresh?
Scared But Fresh was a phrase sent to me in 2002 by a friend; she signed an e mail that way. I immediately seized upon it, made a tonne of text works with it, cutting stencils and painting them, or adding it to other works, but also meditating upon its possible meanings. The “but” is critical. My thinking in using it for the title of this exhibition at Orange Dot Gallery in London was that it was so aggressive, sure but still loaded with innocence and dread. Like love.

Critics have previously cited your work as a dadaist exploration of sense and non-sense. What would your response be to this?
I would agree with them. Dada is many things, and has been the point of departure for nearly 100 years of art production. The combination of sense and non-sense, broken grammar, chopped up meaning, and the flux of everyday life is, in my view, what my consciousness is like. What is the sense of finding a dollar bill stuck in a pile of dog shit? Or posters torn and weathered revealing a history of pasting and perhaps, a history of beauty (the models featured in years of posters, bits of their faces and clothing revealed)? I grab onto these things and consider them. Other people think about interest rates and widget production, and so do I, but I do something quite different with the information, the images and the meaning of these things. A large piece I produced, Les Affaires (prints are on Keep Calm Gallery’s site), surveys all sorts of exchanges; it is about commerce in many ways. Another work, Immaculate Perception (also available as a print on Keep Calm Gallery), is a very simple surreal piece showing a girl blossoming from a lemon tree. It’s not very interesting to be logical all day long, plus logic is overrated.


Cornell Bottle (photography courtesy of Orange Dot Gallery)

How would you describe your own style of work?
I’m a cut and paste artist. But I try to be clear in my chaos. The style can be dada, neo-pop, surreal, but I think after all these years, it’s simply mine.

When you create art, do you do it in the frame of mind that it will be viewed by others or it is created as a visual form of a personal diary?
I create these things to see them for myself, to discover what this 1/2 face would look like with this 1/2 refrigerator. Or what would happen if this nice girl in her party dress would be like if she were wearing a steak for a head, or a pair of mechanical gears for breasts? I produce these works the way I play chess, carefully, but totally willing to take risks, totally willing to exchange queens, sacrifice pawns…not afraid to lose. As for a diary, I’m not sure about that, but I do work in books very often. Some of my series come in the form of 110-page visual novels like A Perfect Friend and Days Like These, People (drawings), Machines (drawings) and a dozen others. I feel not so much as if I’m making things for other people – again – but more for myself, and not to cure myself of anything other than the nightmare that is our world.

You are now based in France. Do you find that where you live has any influence on the themes that run through your work?
Living in France probably hasn’t altered in any significant way the themes that run through my work. Love, sex, death, anxiety, money will find you out no matter where you live. The material though is different. As I’m extremely interested in language, the plethora of printed materials in French, German, Spanish, Italian, English and other languages abounds here. I often find old beat up books tossed out on the street, or objects on the sidewalk. I can also play with a tonne of languages and I very much enjoy that. It’s the world. My studio is small and quiet and as I also live in the space I’m always up at 3 am working. Or I sleep then wake and work… something is always going on here, and should I need to go out, a walk proves a real fascination for me after a period of intense activity. “Holy smokes,” I’ll say to myself. “I live in France.” I sometimes forget that I actually live in this country.

What thoughts/feelings would you like viewers to go away with after they have been to your exhibition?
Well they tell me that they enjoy the work, they like that craziness of the work, but that it all makes sense. During the exhibition the head of a large international advertising company spent quite a while looking at my work. His focus is message communication, and in particularly creating iPhone apps, so he’s very attuned to visuals and text, and he said to me: “This is brilliant.” At the moment he was looking at a work from the America series of a girl on a swing with the word “HOME” pasted on top of her. She was pasted, in turn, on top of a photograph of a ship in a raging storm. That to me was very rewarding. Because something that was interesting to me was interesting to someone else, it was strong enough to click somewhere else.

How would you best like to be remembered?
You mean when I die? I launched an enormous project about this (in a way), A Book About Death. So I’ve thought long and hard about what its like to not have consciousness, to be left alone, to struggle with the impermanence of life, and the often sad and painful lives we lead when the folks we love are no longer with us. I’ve tried not to turn away from death and acknowledge it. Maybe as someone who wasn’t afraid to confront his demons, loved his friends and collaborated with the world in a way that made a little bit more sense out of the nonsense.

Categories ,A Book About Death, ,Brown University, ,Cornell, ,Dadaists, ,de Kooning, ,Duchamp, ,Emily Harvey Foundation Gallery, ,Hopper, ,Johns, ,Kat Phan, ,Keep Calm Gallery, ,Malevich, ,matisse, ,Matthew Rose, ,MoMA Wales, ,MuBE, ,Orange Dot Gallery, ,picasso, ,Pollock, ,Rauschenberg, ,Ray Johnson, ,Scared But Fresh, ,Surrealists, ,The Brooklyn Museum, ,The Queens Museum, ,van gogh, ,Warhol

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Amelia’s Magazine | An interview with American artist Matthew Rose


My situation (image courtesy of Matthew Rose)

Matthew Rose is an American artist living in Paris known for his 1, look 000 piece wall-to-wall collages. On viewing his work, purchase you can’t help but feel as if you are peering into the wrong end of a telescope; the objects look familiar yet distorted, eerie yet beautiful.

His abstract, artistic style presents a surreal and parallel world infused with vibrant colours where he often plays with an unusual fusion of subjects (and by this I mean a man with carrots for his head or a woman who is part-human, part-camera – pretty crazy stuff but in the most fantastic sense!).

For almost three decades, Matthew has been producing installations, which reinforce the connection between imagery and literature in art. His works – many of which are a composite of beautiful colours, visuals and text melting into one another – evoke the genres of 20th century surrealist artists, and several critics have cited his work as demonstrating a ‘dadaist exploration of sense and non-sense’.

Matthew’s installations have featured in galleries and museums across Europe, Asia and the United States, and his work has appeared in numerous books and magazines, including MASTERS: COLLAGE (Sterling Publishing/Lark Books, 2010) published recently.

His most notable art project to date, A Book About Death, showcased in New York’s Emily Harvey Foundation Gallery in September 2009. The show was a logistical feat involving thousands of artists from across the globe sending 500 artworks in the form of postcards to construct the exhibition. The beauty of the exhibition was that the end result was offered to one lucky visitor in the form of a book… for free. More than 18 exhibitions of A Book About Death have been staged worldwide, including The Queens Museum in New York, MuBE in São Paulo and MoMA Wales.


Private view invite (image courtesy of Matthew Rose and Orange Dot Gallery)

Matthew’s most recent project, Scared But Fresh, is a dislocated love story exploring the sense and non-sense, which I was lucky enough to catch at Orange Dot Gallery, a lovely new exhibition space in the heart of Bloomsbury. By his own admission, Matthew is interested in ‘creating works to see them for himself’ but as a by-product of his imagination, his mesmerising creations prompt the viewer to garner thoughts of their own.

After gate-crashing a Brown University reunion held at the gallery, where Matthew studied Semiotics in 1981, I managed to grab a quiet moment with the calm and composed artist before his alumni chums arrived, gaining a glimpse into the annals of the mind of a truly fascinating individual…

How old were you when you realised you wanted to be an artist?
I couldn’t have been more than six years old when my mother and aunt dragged me to The Brooklyn Museum to see Van Gogh. The lines went around the block and I couldn’t understand what the fuss was about; I was hungry, my feet hurt and being small, I was suffocating in this cloud of wool coats. Once inside the galleries, however, I caught my first glimpse of what has proven to be a very nourishing world… I stayed close to my mother and aunt for about 10 minutes but soon enough got lost (purposely) and quietly pushed my way through the crowds to get up close to Van Gogh’s brilliant colors, these vibrating landscapes – in particular, the painting he produced in the Arlesian sun, Almond Branches in Bloom (1890). It turned out to be one of the pieces he produced the year he died of a self-inflicted gun shot wound. I never forgot the color and intelligence behind this painting, and I slowly began to look for this “art experience” in my own.


Anglais (image courtesy of Matthew Rose)

What artists did you look up to when you were developing your artistic style?
Most artists I know were influenced by the early 20th century modernists – Picasso, Matisse, Malevich…then Duchamp and the Dadaists, the Surrealists, Pollock, de Kooning and then those who flavored the world we arrived in: Warhol, Johns, Rauschenberg. For me, probably folks like Hopper for his era and compositions and silence; and Cornell for his expansive internal universe, and mostly Ray Johnson, because he was a friend and teacher (as he was to thousands) and the way he worked. Since I mostly work in collage, I’m more prone to think in disparate images and texts, an old-fashioned multi-media stream of consciousness. I don’t have problems with dislocated images and lexical puzzles. Of course I don’t pretend that these artists are producing works of philosophy, but rather reflecting the cataclysm that stems from consciousness.

Your work often involves the use of collage – what led to this fascination and why do you like working in this particular abstract context?
Collage is just one of several mediums I work in. Over the years I’ve produced works/object in wax or wood, painting and drawing, and text pieces either as rubber stamp works (printing) or drawing the words. One of my interests is word as image, and collage permits me to combine words and images in a fairly rapid fashion. I tend to work super fast and produce series in a matter of days or weeks. I’m pretty obsessed once I get going and very little interferes with my process. I did a show some years ago called ‘Spelling With Scissors’, and this is my approach – combining literature (texts) with images. I have always discussed my aesthetic view as a form of reading.

What does working in collage allow you to express in ways that other forms of artistic expression cannot?
Speed. Strangeness. The wide array of material allows me to cover many ideas and compositional concepts in a short period of time. Painting plays a part in what I do, as does drawing and often these mediums come into play in a work. But collage is an approach to consciousness, and that, I think is the flux endpoint in my work. Most of the elements I use are found, and that, too, is an important part of my process. Seeing what the world washes up at my feet, the skidmarks of my time and place.


Scared But Fresh at Orange Dot Gallery (photography courtesy of Orange Dot Gallery)

What was the inspiration behind Scared But Fresh?
Scared But Fresh
is a love story. The works in the exhibition come together (in my mind, at least) to lay out a dislocated love story, a song about love with its insistent cacophony. I think if you look at the pieces in this exhibition, including the 12-piece collage on paper series, America, you’ll see sex, love and death (the staples of art making), you’ll discover heartache, lust, dread and all those angst-laden things that produce so much of the content of our lives. Or at least that’s the way I see it. Again, I produce these works to see them myself, to see what these odd elements produce in combination, and to perhaps understand what sort of stuff is moving around inside of me; that said, it’s not therapy, but rather an inquiry.

Why is the exhibition called Scared But Fresh?
Scared But Fresh was a phrase sent to me in 2002 by a friend; she signed an e mail that way. I immediately seized upon it, made a tonne of text works with it, cutting stencils and painting them, or adding it to other works, but also meditating upon its possible meanings. The “but” is critical. My thinking in using it for the title of this exhibition at Orange Dot Gallery in London was that it was so aggressive, sure but still loaded with innocence and dread. Like love.

Critics have previously cited your work as a dadaist exploration of sense and non-sense. What would your response be to this?
I would agree with them. Dada is many things, and has been the point of departure for nearly 100 years of art production. The combination of sense and non-sense, broken grammar, chopped up meaning, and the flux of everyday life is, in my view, what my consciousness is like. What is the sense of finding a dollar bill stuck in a pile of dog shit? Or posters torn and weathered revealing a history of pasting and perhaps, a history of beauty (the models featured in years of posters, bits of their faces and clothing revealed)? I grab onto these things and consider them. Other people think about interest rates and widget production, and so do I, but I do something quite different with the information, the images and the meaning of these things. A large piece I produced, Les Affaires (prints are on Keep Calm Gallery’s site), surveys all sorts of exchanges; it is about commerce in many ways. Another work, Immaculate Perception (also available as a print on Keep Calm Gallery), is a very simple surreal piece showing a girl blossoming from a lemon tree. It’s not very interesting to be logical all day long, plus logic is overrated.


Cornell Bottle (photography courtesy of Orange Dot Gallery)

How would you describe your own style of work?
I’m a cut and paste artist. But I try to be clear in my chaos. The style can be dada, neo-pop, surreal, but I think after all these years, it’s simply mine.

When you create art, do you do it in the frame of mind that it will be viewed by others or it is created as a visual form of a personal diary?
I create these things to see them for myself, to discover what this 1/2 face would look like with this 1/2 refrigerator. Or what would happen if this nice girl in her party dress would be like if she were wearing a steak for a head, or a pair of mechanical gears for breasts? I produce these works the way I play chess, carefully, but totally willing to take risks, totally willing to exchange queens, sacrifice pawns…not afraid to lose. As for a diary, I’m not sure about that, but I do work in books very often. Some of my series come in the form of 110-page visual novels like A Perfect Friend and Days Like These, People (drawings), Machines (drawings) and a dozen others. I feel not so much as if I’m making things for other people – again – but more for myself, and not to cure myself of anything other than the nightmare that is our world.

You are now based in France. Do you find that where you live has any influence on the themes that run through your work?
Living in France probably hasn’t altered in any significant way the themes that run through my work. Love, sex, death, anxiety, money will find you out no matter where you live. The material though is different. As I’m extremely interested in language, the plethora of printed materials in French, German, Spanish, Italian, English and other languages abounds here. I often find old beat up books tossed out on the street, or objects on the sidewalk. I can also play with a tonne of languages and I very much enjoy that. It’s the world. My studio is small and quiet and as I also live in the space I’m always up at 3 am working. Or I sleep then wake and work… something is always going on here, and should I need to go out, a walk proves a real fascination for me after a period of intense activity. “Holy smokes,” I’ll say to myself. “I live in France.” I sometimes forget that I actually live in this country.

What thoughts/feelings would you like viewers to go away with after they have been to your exhibition?
Well they tell me that they enjoy the work, they like that craziness of the work, but that it all makes sense. During the exhibition the head of a large international advertising company spent quite a while looking at my work. His focus is message communication, and in particularly creating iPhone apps, so he’s very attuned to visuals and text, and he said to me: “This is brilliant.” At the moment he was looking at a work from the America series of a girl on a swing with the word “HOME” pasted on top of her. She was pasted, in turn, on top of a photograph of a ship in a raging storm. That to me was very rewarding. Because something that was interesting to me was interesting to someone else, it was strong enough to click somewhere else.

How would you best like to be remembered?
You mean when I die? I launched an enormous project about this (in a way), A Book About Death. So I’ve thought long and hard about what its like to not have consciousness, to be left alone, to struggle with the impermanence of life, and the often sad and painful lives we lead when the folks we love are no longer with us. I’ve tried not to turn away from death and acknowledge it. Maybe as someone who wasn’t afraid to confront his demons, loved his friends and collaborated with the world in a way that made a little bit more sense out of the nonsense.

Categories ,A Book About Death, ,Brown University, ,Cornell, ,Dadaists, ,de Kooning, ,Duchamp, ,Emily Harvey Foundation Gallery, ,Hopper, ,Johns, ,Kat Phan, ,Keep Calm Gallery, ,Malevich, ,matisse, ,Matthew Rose, ,MoMA Wales, ,MuBE, ,Orange Dot Gallery, ,picasso, ,Pollock, ,Rauschenberg, ,Ray Johnson, ,Scared But Fresh, ,Surrealists, ,The Brooklyn Museum, ,The Queens Museum, ,van gogh, ,Warhol

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Amelia’s Magazine | An interview with artist Jessica Albarn

Like most girly girls growing up, viagra 60mg my bedroom was decorated with various shades of baby pink and faerie-inspired memorabilia (I say most, stuff but the latter could have just been me). I had faerie bedspreads, sickness faerie lampshades, faerie candles, faerie wind chimes (no, really) – I had no idea of the concept of taking things too far. If there was an image of one of those illuminated delicate, dainty little figures slapped onto anything (including mugs and toilet rolls), it had to be mine.

Although I have since grown out of my faerie-loving phase (and into other crazy obsessions my good friends will tell you!), the child in me still gravitates towards stories about magical otherworldly beings, the innocence of youth, and pretty much anything that takes me back to my childhood. It is for this reason that when I was asked to do a feature on Jessica Albarn’s storybook, The Boy in the Oak, it was with a resounding ‘yes’ that I answered. However, it turns out that the faeries I would be writing about aren’t the good ones that I used to wrap around me to protect me as I slept.

Written and illustrated by Jessica, the artist tells the fantastical story of a young lonely boy who amuses himself by trampling on flowers, tearing the limbs off trees, and traumatising the creatures in the garden of his family home. As his play grows more cruel day by day, the faeries that inhabit a giant oak tree, which is also the passageway to the Kingdom of Faerie, at the bottom of his garden become increasingly unsettled until eventually, they cast a spell on him, trapping the boy in the magical oak.

The narrative is accompanied by fine, detailed sketches of spindly creatures, faeries and emotive facial expressions (the faces of the two protagonists in her story are based on her son Rudy and daughter Lola). Insects are introduced throughout the text and appear on most pages of the book, which Jessica weaves into the fabric of her story, somehow managing to make them appear more beautiful than creepy, through her gentle artistic strokes. The result is a dreamy, melancholic and rather sinister yet magical tale for adults and children alike.

On the eve of the launch of her first storybook ever, Amelia’s Magazine finds a quiet moment to talk to the very talented artist (who also happens to be Damon Albarn’s sister) about her artistic influences, her rural upbringing, her alter ego faerie tale character and her biggest career challenge to date…

When did you first decide that you wanted to become an artist?
I have always loved drawing but I guess I decided that I wanted to be an artist when I was about 15 yrs old.

How has your style evolved since you first started?
When I began my degree I was part of the sculpture department but I found I was happiest when I was drawing (although that could have been down to the fact that my sculptures had a tendency to fall over whenever my tutor drew near!). By the end of college, I had started drawing from nature and studying its relationship with geometry. It has developed a lot since then but I guess the seeds of that thought were sown then.

What/who has influenced your style?
Probably the most influential thing for me was the ‘Butterfly Ball’ by Alan Alderidge. It was a book I had as a child and of which I have revisited hundreds of times. I was fascinated by the detail, the personalities that Alderidge gave his characters and the dark sinister undertones.

What inspired The Boy in the Oak?
A good friend of mine has a tree in her garden that has a ghostly face in the bark. Her garden backs onto a wood and it reminded me of a place I used to visit as young child. A perfect setting for a faerie tale!

Is there a metaphor that older readers should relate to in The Boy in the Oak?
It’s about tuning into the magic in our daydreams, seeing through the veil of reality and escaping the prison of our minds.

How long did it take you to produce the illustrations and story for this book?
There were gaps along the way but it’s taken about four years from the birth of the idea to fruition.

Most of your work has a childhood theme – what was your childhood like and what were you like as a child?
I was born in London, but my parents moved out to North Essex when I was about 6. My parents are both artistic: my Dad ran the Colchester Arts school and my Mum had a studio at home. She also had a shop where she sold arts and crafts. We lived in a very old tudor house in a close-knit village. Most of my childhood was spent running around the countryside, making dens in woods and playing down by the river with my friends. I had lots and lots of guinea pigs, a rabbit and a cat. Also my Mum had a friend who had some ponies. It was all very ramshackle, but my Mum taught me and a lot of the village kids to ride. It was far away from pony club, hairnets and horse boxes, which was a good thing. I was a very happy child. My brother and I had a lot of freedom.

What is your favourite children’s fairy tale and why?
I loved all fairy tales like The Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen and the illustrations and stories in Russian Fairytales and folklore. But my favourite today still is the ‘The Happy Prince’ – by Oscar Wilde for its beautiful portrayal of love and kindness.

If you could be any fairy tale character, who would you be and why?
I would be the little girl in Baba Yaga, beating the witch and escaping adversity.

What has been the biggest career challenge you have faced to date?
Doing a three day live drawing performance for Helmut Lang in Tokyo. It was just a big deal for someone like me who is very private in their practice to be watched drawing!

What has been your proudest achievement to date?
Succeeding in getting my book published.

What three pieces of advice would you offer someone who is starting out as an illustrator/artist?
I don’t really see myself as an illustrator and haven’t worked as one apart from illustrating my book but as an artist I would say do what pleases you and don’t worry about what other people may think, work very, very hard and don’t give up if it makes you happy!

Jessica Albarn’s book ‘The Boy in the Oak’ is now available in bookstores worldwide.

(All images courtesy of Jessica Albarn)

Categories ,Alan Alderidge, ,Baba Yaga, ,Butterfly Ball, ,Colchester, ,damon albarn, ,Faerie, ,Hans Christen Andersen, ,Helmut Lang, ,Jessica Albarn, ,Kat Phan, ,North Essex, ,Oak, ,The Brothers Grimm, ,The Happy Prince, ,tokyo

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