Manjit Thapp

Manjit Thapp is an illustration student based in the UK. Her most recent drawing process is to draw everything in pencil, scan, and add colour on Photoshop – she particularly likes to combine digital and traditional media together.

I recently discovered Manjit Thapp through finding her short comic on seasonal affective disorder, also known as SAD. I believe that Thapp is successful in sensitively communicating the feeling behind seasonal affective disorder and I admire how she decided to tackle a disorder that I feel people are unaware of (including myself). In that sense she truly embraces the idea of a fanzine by giving the unheard voices and issues a voice to be heard - which is admirable.
I’ve become to love Manjit Thapps work because it’s a refreshingly new style to me. I’ve noticed that she tends to exaggerate the facial features by enlarging the eyes, lips, ears and eyebrows yet she shrinks down the nose. I’m also a fan of her use of texture and pastel colours.

@fi.grew

Fi is a BA Womenswear graduate from London College of Fashion. I discovered her work through a re-gram on Instagram by @cassartlondon.

When I discovered Fi's work I became an instant fan - I admire the way she uses mix media which embraces handmade techniques.  

'My Mother's Coat' by Marie Margaux

Marie Margaux is a freelance illustrator and animator based in North London but was born in Athens, Greece in 1986.

Marie Margauxs 6 minute film "My Mother's Coat" is a simple yet sincre and honest short animated story. Within this video Maries Italian mother describes her struggles to adapt to Greek life - based on her interview about motherhood. "she talks to me about her arrival in post-dictatorship Athens in the 70's, her struggles to adjust to the Greek mentality, her memories and nostalgia of motherhood, but also her long lasting desire to move back to her small hometown in Italy." - Marie Margaux. The narration by Paolo Dionisotti presents a genuine and poignant feel to the short film - which then creates a relationship were we can sympathize towards her isolated life within Greece.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcr0XDamjdg

'Belly' by Julia Pott

Julia Pott is a British animator and illustrator living in LA and New York. She graduated from Kingston University with first class honours in 2007. She then graduated with an MA in animation from The Royal College of Art in 2011. Her films have played at festivals worldwide including Sundance, SXSW and Annecy with awards from festivals including AFI, Chicago, San Francisco and Holland.

The coming-of-age film "Belly" is told in what could be described as 'gruesomely beautiful detail'. In an interview on Motionographer, Julia Pott explains that the idea derived from "the cross-over period between going to sleep in back of the car at night, then seamlessly waking up in my bed the next morning. Then I got too old and heavy and was woken up by my parents, forced to trudge upstairs, brush my teeth and put myself bed. I remember being acutely aware that I had had things pretty good for a while, and now it was over."

"Growing up with a sister five years older then me, I spent a large period of my childhood feeling generally hard done by, ostracized and left out. I was so desperate to speed through the process of being kid that I didn't stop to appreciate what I would be leaving behind. Once it's been given up, it's gone. You can remember the sensation, you can feel it in the pit of your stomach, but you cannot get back there - hence the title, "Belly."

Pott goes on to explain that once she arrived on the theme of childhood, she began to indulge in memories of her own. "As a kid I think we more willingly immerse ourselves in the uncanny, happy to feel inexplicably weird. We consume horror, gore and casual death. I was absolutely fascinated by the idea of sinking in quicksand, being beheaded, ghosts...As I got older, I grew out of my kid-like immunity to the spooky - not so ready to feel scared, not wanting to feel it at all, in fact."

My first instinct was to question why the film was called 'Belly', what was its relevance? But that was taking it to literally. It was much more imaginative. Much more emotional.

Atelier Bingo

Atelier Bingo is Maxime Prou and Adele Favreau, who are French illustrators and graphic designers. Their prints display 'many layers and can be seen as a dialogue between the artists. Constantly experimenting with shapes, texture, and colours they create screen-prints as well as digital prints.' " we use screen-printing the way a painter uses a paint brush. We build an image colour by colour, and never know what the image will look like before the last colour is set."

Atelier Bingo have a talent for evoking a mood and atmosphere within their work. But what is it about colour and shape that can create such an emotional response? The colours are so energetic. The shapes are so spontaneous. There's a feeling of passion. A true love for the craft. Yet this makes it feel as though there is no meaning. But that's what so satisfying, we can come up with our own interpretations, without having to over think it. It's creative. it's imaginative. And that's what I love about collage and print making. 

Ryan Estep

Dissatisfied with his job as a construction worker, Brooklyn-based artist Ryan Estep turned to art to fulfil his desire to unveil truths in the world around him…and never looked back. Estep paints with unlikely mediums like lipstick and drywall mud on linen to create existential works of art.“Describing my work has always been difficult. A work is successful when it stands uncomfortably before language…when it is able to communicate in a manner that I am unable to express otherwise.”

Ryan Estep uses his minimalistic style in a way that intrigues me. It’s compelling. It’s captivating. It causes me to ask questions. I want to know more. I want to know why he only choses to show half of the leaf, why it looks like its travelling through the wall or why only half of it is in colour. It’s this act of questioning that evokes our own interpretations. I believe he is commenting on our urban landscapes. He is showing how we are building were nature once was. We are killing our natural environment. The more I looked into it, the deeper I searched for a meaning. I began to notice that there was no shadows which meant that the leaves could no longer gain light from the sun. Is this due to all the tall buildings within our urban landscape? Which has then caused the leaves to become white due to being prevented from doing the process of photosynthesis.

However, the reason I am fond of this piece is because it shares my love and appreciation for nature. You see, in contrary to what described previously, I believe Ryan Estep is presenting nature in a way were it is fighting back against our concrete jungle in order to regain its land. In that sense, Estep work resonates similar themes to Michael Landys series ‘Nourishment’ were he studied weeds that were growing in the streets of London. He explained that “they are marvellous, optimistic things that you find in inner London… They occupy an urban landscape which is very hostile and they have to be adaptable and find little bits of soil to prosper”. It's about survival and the way nature is having to tenaciously assert themselves despite being overlooked by the majority of passers-by.

Justin Francavilla

Justin Francavillas project titled Dead Flowers, consists of multiple ink drawings and intaglio prints ranging in scale from 22×30” to 55×96”. The drawings and prints continue to explore 'Francavilla’s trademark aggressive style of working while maintaining a fine and delicate line.' For this collection Francavilla takes inspiration from his garden with dead flowers that take on figurative traits. 'The flowers seem to be at war with each other but maintain an odd sexual quality.'

Artist Statement: “I primarily make large scale ink on paper drawings.  They fall into a couple of separate but related categories, Men, Flowers and landscapes. All of my work is about survival, the inherent competition that that entails and my underlying love and hope for humanity.The landscapes fall under the title: Testimonies Against Obliteration.  They are comprised of several parts, dying plant life, struggling human life and the remains of our civilized society littering the landscape.The 21st century is entering into a post-human period where our humanity is losing out to our increasingly mechanized digital world. These drawings explore our chaotic world of speed, information, status, power and the waste that’s left in our wake. The drawings often evolve from one vignette to the next until a complete scene has been created. The aging, dying and dead flowers found throughout my work explore the simultaneous stillness of dying and the explosive violence of rebirth. These drawings are meticulous meditations on existence.  They show the beauty of aging and they are celebrations of living.The series of men under the title: I Said You FCKN Die! Are drawings of competing capitalists. They are pictures of internal struggles seeking to denounce violence and the aggressive nature of man. I work almost entirely with an old fashioned nib dipped in ink because I enjoy the purity the black line on the page.  With no mechanized parts between the ink from my fingers meeting the page I am able to deal directly with every fractious grain of the paper. It is a love to create beautiful images that moves me to work this way. There are no illusions within an ink drawing, every line the hits the paper is left there, it cannot be erased and the inks’ blackness cannot be blackened any further. The evolution of the drawing is transparent, there is nowhere to hide and any lies that I make are left in plain sight. The indelible power of ink drawings resides in this truth telling ability allowing me to create these testimonies to our humanity.”

I have loved his work for the way that he pays exceptional attention to every last detail. Francavilla also has a talent for turning the ‘ugly’ and ‘ignored’ into showing so beautifully detailed that you can’t help but look at every line and stroke that gone into detail. You can clearly tell he has spent a lot of time and attention to these magnificent pieces of work – you can see that his heart and soul has gone into every line drawn. But, not only does he create drawings that are beautiful to look but he creates a hidden narrative within this work. With this drawing in particular I feel like there is a romance story going on between these flowers – almost like the Romeo and Juliet of the natural world. Perhaps Justin Francavilla is trying to communicate that message that we should look after our environment and the plants within it. The fact that I could personify these flowers to have human emotions suggests that Francavilla is saying that nature is no different to us – it has to fight for survival – therefore we should look after the environment like we would look after each other.