living artist research 4: Renee French, Lisa Evans, Anders Nilsen

1. Renee French

http://www.reneefrench.com/

"French is certainly one of the more acclaimed comics artists of the past decade-plus; it’s fairly rare that a review of whichever anthology she’s currently contributing to doesn’t single her out as one of the highlights of the enterprise, and her pamphlet-format books have garnered a strong following." -Jog the Blog

Edward Gorey-esque Illustrator Renee French uses more feather-thin textures than line to delineate forms, with an admirable sensitivity to the grain of her paper. Her books & graphic novels are filled with imagery that often toes that popular line between body-horror grotesque & baby-shower cuteness.

2. Lisa Evans:
http://firefluff.blogspot.com/
"Journeys & processes, subtle narratives & subplots. I like the merging of fact & fiction & the endless possibilities an image provides."
Wften working in acrylics on gesso & pencil "fluffed up in photoshop," Evans recently finished her first children's book, Orwellian The Flower by John Light and published by Child's Play. She has been focusing on 3-d imaging & design as she works on her current project.

                                     

3. Anders Nilsen
http://www.andersbrekhusnilsen.com/

Acclaimed comics artist-writer Nilsen has a delicacy of line and obsessive quality to his texturing that draws the reader in as if his investment speaks to the viewer's own, no matter how straightforward his concept or joke is. Also, his handwriting looks kind of like mine! He's been nominated for the Ignatz Award and was anthologized in the 2006 Best American Comics. He makes a lot of work, currently an ongoing comic series called Big Questions, for Drawn & Quarterly.

living artist research 3: David Hughes/Sandy Turner, Pieter Gaudesaboos, Sara Fanelli

1. http://www.davidhughesillustration.co.uk/
David Hughes
Highly self-critical and incisive, David Hughes began his long career in TV graphics, and his turning toward children's book illustration may seem unlikely. Somehow his signature spikey-edged draughtsmanship, graphic design sensibility, & precise capture of expression, though occasionally grotesque & alarming, translated well to the current picture-book market. He currently writes & illustrates under the pseudonym Sandy Turner ("the blandest, most gender-neutral name I could think of").




2. http://www.gaudesaboos.be/
Pieter Gaudesaboos:
"... I imagined a child's head as a house with lots & lots of rooms. All the rooms were different & you have to go through all of them in order to understand the child."
After studying graphic design for three years, photo-illustrator Gaudesaboos went to school for photography for two more. He tells his story of the launch of his career as going to publishers with his portfolio, and after being complemented on his work, only being told to "make something" & come back. This is how he wrote his first picture book, & was drawn in by the "overall visual authorial role" that makes him feel himself a storyteller, above an illustrator.





3. Sara Fanelli
http://www.sarafanelli.com/
After being raised in Florence and educated in London (Camberwell and the Royal College of Art), Fanelli worked in editorial, design, advertising, and children's books, despite her feeling that her work within the graphic art world is "at odds with the inherent conservatism of the children's publishing market". She believes this condition is improving, however, with large co-editions being sold by UK publishers to the US & France, where the aesthetic is more progressive. Her collage, digital and hand-drawn combinations has made her a darling of publisher Walker Books, & got her commissioned for a 40-metre hanging for the Tate Britain Gallery.

living artist research 2: Dan Christofferson, Chuck Groenink

1. Dan Christofferson says,
"Like, pelican fly."


In his recent exhibition Terrible Gentle Man, his artist statement describes his goal for that body of work is to distill behavioral stimulus into three categories, a. things that make us happy, b. things that make us sad, and c. things that we can never be certain about, each assigned a series of iconic signifiers. Though I'm a little unconvinced by his conceptual abilities I am attracted to the simplicity, color sensibility & variety in his design work.

 


2. http://cargocollective.com/greenink
Chuck Groenink's handling of color, characteristic but versatile style and children's focus in subject matter was some of what interested myself, the grant allocators at the Fiep Westendorp Foundation, and the editors at the Terrible Yellow Eyes blog in him a few years ago. Now his client list includes Nobrow, Galley Nucleus, Querido Publishers, and others. He also makes felted monsters!

living artists research 1: Sam Vanallemeersch, GiPi, Marcel Dzama

1. http://www.sovchoz.be/

bio: Sam Vanallemeersch draws for you!





That is all Sam Vanallemeersch wants to tell you. But because his drawings make me feel funny, I spy:
Here are the things he likes: http://sovchoz.tumblr.com/
He has a wide variety of styles, from this, his recent scratchy stuff to bold flat vector drawings to manic paintings. I finally found a bio in his page on Pazuzu Illustration Agency's website.
"Sam spends every waking hour tracing life in blackest ink.

Once he starts spewing his freeform ravings, there's no stopping him, no human concept is safe from the sharpness of his gaze, no scrap of paper-related material is safe from the sharpness of his pen.

Sam has done editorial work for Weekend Knack, 11 Freunde and Amsterdam Weekly. Right now he's working on two books, a comic and a publication of his drawings with Nobrow."

nice.

   2.http://giannigipi.blogspot.com/  

bio: GiPi draws loose, delicate watercolor illustrations & writes & draws his own comics. He has a text-thick blog that could tell me much more about him if it wasn't in italian. I've found out this much in english: his well-reviewed graphic novel Garage Band is an example of sensitively rendered "tensions of young adulthood", including biblical character parallels & the requisite absent parents.

   

         2. Marcel Dzama has been one of my favorite artists since I was in early high school. He was born in Canada, got his BFA from the University of Manitoba, & now lives and works in New York City. Some of my favorite work he made collaboratively, at the now-disbanded Royal Art Lodge. He's found a lot of success for his signature style & evocative, ambiguous scenes, making art for album covers and exhibiting at MOMA & the Whitney Biennial. His characteristic color schemes are  sometimes achieved by mixing his watercolor with root beer instead of water, & in his studio there is a face drawn on his oscillating fan. My sister-in-law has a small collection of his prints hung up by clothes pins on a string stretched across her living room wall. Every time I visit it makes me so green.