• Series of commissions and billboards
• Working as a curator at this point to understand the art landscape
• Worked at Seven Stories (National Centre for Children's Books) and with lots of museums
• When looking at illustrations in a gallery things are out of context and in a white room so I have to give great consideration to why I have selected it
• Children's Warrior. Chosen to champion children literature. 2002. National Gallery collections
• Public art gallery opened in 2014. Came on board about that time. International illustration and UK illustration combining
• What I try to do each year is 6 or 7 exhibitions
• Accommodate different kinds of narratives. Roald Dahl.
• EA Shepherd. I put a show on, I have a wide range of tastes, I try to come from different angles that will get people through the door. Went to the family of EA Shepherd and chatted and found out what they had in the collection. During the war he did these lighthearted caricatures, making fun, reportage, on the fields of Belgium and France. Mix of jolly voice and landscapes. Composition.
• As well as drawing, I'm interested in letters and what someone's life is about. The context
• Each exhibition I try to frame it in a different way and completely change it
• Not really into making set rooms
• Picture books from Russia 50 years ago
• An exhibition should be an experience
• We can commission illustrators to make work for us. We have two galleries, contemporary and historic
• House of illustration is in King's Cross, London, and has regenerated. Spaces can be undesirable. Paddy wanted to challenge that a little bit with archetypes
• Another thing a gallery can do is show objects!
• Reportage and documentation illustrator. 200 year old market in London threatened with gentrification. Celebrates it. Highlights elements in the market, textiles, diversity. Commenting on our society
• How an exhibition starts. People say they have an interesting collection. Lots of plastic bags and a suitcase in a studio. Going through and filter it and edit it down.
• North Korea 30 year period crisp packets, ticket stubs. NK is militaristic and problematic, people aren't living their lives. Military parades like robots. Thought we'd look at domestic life in NK and not military life. Interesting angle to gather people's interest. Same symbols kept coming up in graphic design through the government. An orchard. Means something. Thats exciting to me!
• Immersive spaces but want them to be genuine
• Sometimes people will have an amazing collection but there's no information or the studio so I can't put it up on the wall. People may still be around so I try to track people down. Made a poster, found an art director who had sadly passed away but was allowed to his home and given access to his work and intentions. Went to old office and studios. Receipts, bank statements, triangulating information
• Tom of Finland, born in 1920 working until 1980, art director by day and by night drew his fantasies. He was gay. He would send tiny erotic drawings as a contact sheet. Not many would do that at the time, if at all, so it was amazing. His studio is preserved by a friend of his. He does a lot of pencil drawings I could look at, body building magazines of the 50s
• Varoom. Showed me a whole new world of illustration. They were looking for an editor a few years ago. It's been going for a long time but it has its heritage. It was in a glossy format and when I was looking at the industry now it didn't quite fit anymore. Online platforms are finding out about illustration and design. I made it much smaller and fatter like a book, cheap ways of making something different. The cover will always be a talking point
• If magazines come out every month they have a grid and a high turnaround. Varoom comes out twice a year so I can craft it, the typeface is different and it feels like a much more bespoke thing
• Instagram is a good promotional tool but I'm wary of it. Some images get traction some don't. All depends on the algorithm
• Each issue has a theme. This new issue is about narrative
• How do I choose illustrators? I go to graduate shows, general art shows, I keep an eye on things online, people send me their work. For historic stuff people are generous. Illustration is not like painting, quite a lot of collections take time to find contexts and information about them
No comments:
Post a Comment