Out now! My profile of illustrator Katherine Lam in Issue 30 of 3×3 Magazine. Here is an excerpt:
Theatrical lighting is a consistent motif in this work. Most of Katherine’s editorial illustrations are set in the late afternoon, early evening, or at some indeterminate time of night which results in heavy shadows for the late afternoon illustrations and predominantly inky backgrounds for the others. (Or as Katherine put it in a recent social media post, “Damn my images are dark af!”) Somber palettes allow Katherine to articulate space, create depth, and add drama with judicious hits of brighter colors. “I use light and shadow to make my environments feel surreal,” says Katherine. “I don’t see a point in making things realistic or grounded in reality because photography can achieve that quicker and better. Also, my subjects tend to be rather mundane and boring—usually just a person sitting or standing in front of a building or setting—so by lighting a scene in an unnatural but still believable way I can add some interest to my work.”
Although the ethos of film may be its crux, Katherine’s illustrations nonetheless harness the aesthetic cues of traditional media, including visible brushstrokes, roughened textures, and washes of modulated color. “It’s all digital, even the brushstrokes,” explains Katherine. “I don’t like the flatness of digital art so I put a lot of textures back into my work.” The result makes for a surprisingly good marriage between two starkly different aesthetic impulses: cinematography and painting. It is as though Katherine’s work is a digital amalgam of John Ford’s long shots, Citizen Kane’s high-intensity carbon arc lighting, and Edward Hopper’s painterly alienation.
Read the entire profile (as well as prior articles) under Design is Play Articles. [MF]