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Slide 1: I’m Kimberley Burrows and this is my presentation reflecting on this very difficult academic year of Level 5, deconstructing the continuing evolvement of my professional practice and the interests that inform it, detailing some of the noteworthy "eureka moments" that developed and furthered my skills, and discussing where I would like to take my practice next year during Level 6 and beyond.
Slide 2: In order to move forward into level 6, I need to reflect upon the past few years and give consideration to the kind of practitioner I started out as and the ways in which I worked, so I can identify my development this past 10 months. Coming from the Access to HE course and going into University as an older student with a disability, I really wanted to prove myself and take every opportunity to do my best resulting in me being very meticulous and careful. I didn’t want to make mistakes or "get things wrong", I was every inch a perfectionist. I was very scared to try new processes and new ways of thinking that were unfamiliar to me as I was older and set in my ways.
University enabled me to access a lot of new methods and processes I hadn’t used before, but I was still very apprehensive to use them at their full potential. I wouldn’t allow myself to be as experimental as I could have been to best ensure my final results were always balanced and aesthetically pleasing. Everything had to be planned out and be tackled in a methodical way. I felt I was making some progress during my first year at level 4 but I was still very closed off to showing my vulnerability as an illustrator and as a person; not wanting to make quick work, expressionist sketches or playing with tone of voice. I wanted everything to be the best it could be and I was dead set on being a children's book illustrator with little room for consideration of any other types of illustration. I wanted to prove to myself, to my tutors and to my family that someone with a severe sight-impairment, struggling with depression and terrible anxiety, could indeed produce outstanding work at university level. I didn’t want my vision to hold me back in any way and I worked each and every day for over 8 hours. I was an overachiever, wanting the highest grades I could possibly get with my time and efforts.
It burnt me out at the end of Level 4 and, upon reflection, this was not a sustainable way of working and building my practice. It was not enjoyable, I was not having fun and I started to dislike the course. Last academic year at Level 4, I created very beautiful outcomes but I also felt very unfulfilled. Pictured in the slide is my meticulous approach to using Adobe Illustrator to create a sticker design, posted to my blog and recorded step-by-step. Also seen is my Pearly Kings and Queens book for the Visual Narratives module, with plenty of symmetry and balance, and a personal commission by Guide Dogs for the Blind Association to create a Christmas card and matching envelope to send to their patrons. All very pretty, but ultimately with nothing distinctive of me in them. A lack of authenticity and an unsureness in myself as an artist.
The way in which I worked focused primarily on a digital approach with Photoshop and a Wacom Tablet but I also liked to use the method of cut paper shapes, scanning them in and using Photoshop to rearrange them with my own handmade textures - marrying the analogue and the digital. Everything was ordered symmetrically and had a harmony to it. This came from my need for perfection.
Slide 3: For the final module of Level 4, which was a precursor to "About the Author" in Level 5, I really started to let go of a lot of meticulousness in my practice and approach. Looking to Zaha Hadid's architecture, I noticed her use of organic forms and how she was inspired by the locations in her upbringing that featured sand dunes and roots and flora. As she was an architect, her work immediately made me think of schematics and computerised drawings but also small-scale models and maquettes. I was starting to think in a different way by investigating an artist I had never considered looking at. This pushed me out of my comfort zone to work in 3 dimensions, rather than just on the page. There was something therapeutic and magical about being able to put my small amount of vision to the side and concentrate on how something feels with its tactile elements. This was my first introduction to working in 3D and I worked with clay to combine a natural, organic experience with an analogue approach. I enjoyed the challenge of translating something from the page to a tangible form. That then allowed me to open up a new set of questions for myself instead of revisiting the familiar and the comfortable.
That was an exciting jump-off point – what could I do now? I could try out different approaches and techniques. For the first time I considered photography as a response opening up my discipline further and expanding my skills. My mind began to race and I was hungry for new processes; making vac forms of the clay sculptures, photograms of natural forms found in fruit and vegetables, and schematic grids in Illustrator. I overlaid these together to make a new visual language that was distinctly Zaha Hadid but also playful and evocative. This was the new starting point of experimentation.
Slide 4: My own personal experiences these past few years have changed the way in which I approach my work, too. I've greatly struggled with my mental health and developed an eating disorder when I came back from Uganda in the summer of 2017, witnessing a harsh way of life out there for adults and children alike with the bare minimum of anything. I was exhausted from 2 years in Access to HE and Level 4, and took the academic year out to rest. During this time I developed a stronger interest in music, finding what is now my favourite band, and falling in love with band branding, logos and merchandise featuring distinct illustrations, costuming and live concert photography.
I have dealt with a lot of trauma; My mum had a severe stroke in February 2018 and both of my retinas detached later that year in September and December 2018. My changing and diminishing vision, destructive coping mechanisms and being thrown headfirst into a new life of being entirely independent with no family to help me means I have changed entirely from the person I was in the past. I used to seek approval and praise from my loved ones in a childlike way. Now I no longer have a family unit and a support to seek any praise from. I am isolated and alone. I am now trying to exist every day in the quarantine and not let bad thoughts win, trying to be resilient, and I'm battling a lot of demons every waking hour. I no longer seek any approval for myself or the work I do and don't focus on creating the best outcome I possibly can. At times I give up on myself entirely. Now I am just trying to survive and find any kind of emotion that isn't despair. I've found I no longer have an interest in the children's books I used to adore as I do not find the comfort in them that I used to. I now rely heavily on music to be my therapy and comfort and to help process my inner thoughts and feelings.
Slide 5: Over the duration of the quarantine and self isolating, I needed an escape and something to focus on from being stuck inside. I've always wanted to explore The Beatles' back catalogue but never had the time to do so - now I had plenty of time! I really found myself transported to another era through their early, muffled recordings of positive, catchy pop rock, to folk and soul, to outright psychedelia and art rock. They were the soundtrack to swinging 60s culture, the ultimate trendsetters and had an interesting linear progression; going from 4 young clean-cut local boys who evolved their image and sound informed by their experiences of travelling the world and experimenting with drugs. Their later compositions became more innovative, more lush, with multiple layers of playful sounds creating an intriguing ambience. It gave me a nostalgia of an era I wasn't even alive in and reinvigorated my interest in life and learning.
I saw parallels of their progression in myself of how I started out my practice as someone staying within the rules and not exploring beyond what was comfortable, to then being changed by life experiences, age and travelling, and a need to express myself in a more loose language.
I learned about the history of the vinyl covers for each record and how it informed a visual language of its own. The "Rubber Soul" era particularly interests me both musically and artistically. It was the first record of theirs not to feature their name, a testament to how big they had become. The font was created by Charles Front who was influenced by the album name and produced something akin to the globules from a rubber tree - starting narrow and then filling out. The rounded letters used on the sleeve established a style that became ubiquitous in psychedelic designs and a staple of poster art for the flower power generation. The elongated photo was entirely an accident when photographer Robert Freeman projected the image for the band onto cardboard but it fell slightly backwards.
This history of the vinyl is intriguing and showcases how the Beatles continued to test the limits during this time - something I wish to do with my practice.
Slide 6: Similarly, I also have fallen heavily in love with the Punk movement of the late 70s - again providing an escape during this stressful time of self-isolating during Covid but also peaking my emerging multidisciplinary interests with the marriage of music, fashion, photography, live shows and attitudes. The music of the Sex Pistols, the fashion of Vivienne Westwood in her SEX clothing store and the DIY, "fuck it" attitude are a far cry from the things I enjoyed during level 4 a few years ago but are strongly influencing my work and rejecting excess and perfectionism.
Slide 7: A big illustrative influence this year was the practitioner Este Mcleod. I was really drawn to the colour palettes of green and blue and how she was inspired by motifs of flora and fauna and natural forms, just like Hadid. I was drawn to the unique voice in the shapes, pattern, texture and repetition. The textures helped to give an ambiguous tone of voice and an interesting visual language. There’s something mystical with the layer building. I wanted to incorporate this in the Agatha Christie work I was undertaking as it married perfectly with the subject of secrets and mystery. I focused on The Murder on the Orient Express and divided it into different motifs that are easily recognisable for Christie - the train, tickets, poison bottles and a magnifying glass. Repeated forms with the use of handmade textures created a mystery like in the book and a nod to McLeod.
Slide 8: The biggest contrast in the Kimberley "then" and the Kimberley "now" can be seen in part of the Process and Production module with the brief, "About the Author." I started this brief twice as the first attempt at Level 5 ended abruptly with my mental heath issues and the second attempt with my retinal detachment, surgeries and subsequent recovery.
The left side illustrates how I used to work, heavily informed by narratives such as children's books and a fondness for characterisation and composition. The right side showcases my now more experimental approaches, informed by Este Macleod, imbuing their way of working into mine with repeat pattern motifs, textures and the use of green and blue in the colour palette to contextualise the poison used as the common murder weapon in Christie's novels. Previously I worked digitally to create this perfect structure and character. Now I collected ephemera from packaging and cut them into simple symbols, building up and collaging with textures in monoprinting to create an ambiguous and mysterious tone of voice. It was a process of experimentation and pushing an idea whilst simplifying it into basic shapes that made it successful. For the final booklet, I printed onto acetate so the pages would build on top of each other to create an element of intrigue and almost something puzzle-like - as with the novel. Working from an author allowed me to illustrate from a personal experience and interpretation. In the past I would have focused on solely illustrating the book rather than the experience I had and the feelings I felt.
Slide 9: Developing the front cover for the booklet allowed me to play with type - something I have a growing interest in from the band logos and vinyl covers I admire over these past few years. What I really enjoyed about this process was that the wooden blocks of the type were not perfect. They’d been thrown around, dropped on the floor, and had nicks in them - telling an interesting story themselves. When I hand-printed with them I discovered all these wonderful textures where nothing is uniform, further dissolving that former need for perfection I had. I had this imperfect set of type that didn’t match each other. It created an almost "punk" aesthetic, whilst retaining the aesthetics of a classic typewriter and font, giving connotations of a ransom letter. Arranging the type into a weird composition was very rewarding and, again, broke my previous goals for harmony that I started to take great pride in.
Slide 10: David Mackintosh is someone that I discovered this year in Module 503 for the Dracula brief. In his book covers shown in the slide, I recognised the ways I used to work within his illustrations using basic shapes, character and composition. I could have easily fallen down the pit hole of creating outcomes like this and the work I used to make. Whilst I took influence from the simple colour palette of white, black and red, I quickly identified that I wanted to be more adventurous in my type and composition.
Slide 11: Undertaking the Dracula brief allowed me to look at different methods of responses by making a gif, creating a typeface and creating screen prints. This allowed me to be more open and accept that I didn’t just enjoy illustration and I wanted to be more multidisciplinary. I enjoyed type, making my own handmade font, and creating a moving image. I had a lot of obstacles with the screen print in that brief. I did a lot of research and different approaches such as photography and playing with lights. I tried to overlay multiple methods like the Zaha Hadid piece but it wasn’t working. It became far too busy and felt like I was throwing everything at it. It got TOO experimental. Simplicity is key to making something effective.
The Dracula brief was different for me and something very special. Experiencing firsthand the music and lighting gave me a different appreciation of other things outside of the visual and a growing fascination of the components that make a live performance and how I can interpret these in my work. I did a lot of live sketching in the dark which helped me think about shape, form, and light - a bit like reportage illustration. When I came to responding to the brief I could think about light and music. I could listen to information about Dracula and vampires in podcasts and music. I was being very open and absorbing lots of different things rather than reading Dracula itself like I would have done in the past. Now I thought about how I felt about the subject? What was my voice?
There was a lot of problem solving, especially with the type - it was like a eureka moment for me. Instead of using the graph paper and a ruler to make the type perfect, I thought "what is my unique response?" I can barely see but I can touch with my hands. I read Braille with my hands, I create with my hands. So, I literally used my hands (and shellac nails that are rather vampiric!) as shapes to draw around. Thinking outside of what I usually did gave me great success. Using these "claw" shapes allowed me to explore marrying the font with a simple composition and some shadowing to allude to the character. It made me excited to create and wanting to push an idea as far as I could go.
Slide 12: I looked to Jun Cen for inspiration when creating autobiographical illustrations last summer, hoping to provide a window into my experiences with my bad mental health - comprising of depression, anxiety, PTSD and an ED - and the thoughts and feelings surrounding such complicated issues. Jun's cold and muted colour palette and empty compositions help to successfully show the isolation, the numbness, the exhaustion. I used these elements in my own responses, using visual metaphors such as being locked in one's own mind, everything being an uphill climb, feeling like I'm drowning in emotion and far from any sort of rescue, and feeling crushed under the weight of everything and like I'm not a part of society.
Slide 13: The trip to Colours May Vary earlier this year, learning how the business is run and displaying my work outside of a university setting gave me a new confidence and an opportunity to witness illustration in a professional context and exhibition space with my peers. It felt really meaningful and extremely powerful to use my most personal works that were created during and depicting a low point in my life, where I felt weak and powerless, now giving the work new context by openly sharing with other people and inviting them to get a glimpse of something very real, something they may not feel open to talking about. It opened up a number of conversations with people going through similar circumstances and that is where I want my practice to go. To be bold, to inform, to share, to connect. I don't think there is anything better or more fulfilling than using negative feelings for a good purpose and hoping it reaches the people who need it most. I would like to create more work like this as a therapy to myself and to help educate and support others. This could lead to working with mental health charities, applying illustrations to support leaflets and posters.
Slide 14: The visit to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park at the beginning of Level 5 introduced me to the concept of experiential art and responding to sounds, smells, touches, collected ephemera, thoughts and feelings for the first time. The idea of collating as much evidence of my experience as possible, through both Tami and I, was very freeing. There was no expectation to create something beautiful at the end of this brief allowing me to finally let go of my need for perfection. Illustration felt fun again for the first time in a long time as the outcomes could be anything from marks to poetry to clay impressions - harking back to the Hadid outcomes from Level 4 where I was multidisciplinary and combining a number of different research methods and approaches for my own visual language. The random outcome with the risograph with two different peers told our unique stories in a playful documentation. This trip was incredibly valuable to me.
Slide 15: Talking to one of my favourite multidisciplinary illustrators, Sam Dunn, this year has really helped me to understand what it's like working as a professional illustrator in the creative industries and getting started. She has created a lot of work with my favourite music magazines and rock and metal artists and creating a valuable link with her through our favourite band of Ghost is very important for my contact list. As I mentioned earlier, I have really fallen in love with band branding and logos, and their merchandise, giving each band a unique tone of voice and visual language to be recognised by. Looking at her portfolio has given me a sound understanding of the many ways that illustration can be applied to products beyond prints and books.
I have identified two strong interests in music and mental health advocacy during Level 5.
Slides 16, 17 and 18: From this point onwards I want to be brave and more confident to create work from my own perspective as someone who is blind. How do I see and understand the world? I also want to continue in the direction of creating illustrations surrounding depression, anxiety, isolation and general mental illness, especially at such a time as this where we are closed off from the life we knew. I have a unique voice and I want to use it unapologetically. I will be moving away from narratives such as children's books where I no longer feel a connection to positive stories at this time in my life. I want illustration to be therapeutic to me and have a meaningful connection with an audience. It will also motivate me to create work in the first place during frequent low points where I have loss of motivation. Music and experiences will continue to inform my evolving practice and I will continue to push ideas with experimentation and letting go of my former need for perfection. Onwards to Level 6!
