Design is Play

3×3 Magazine Profile of Illustrator Oyow

Issue 35 of 3×3, the Magazine of Contemporary Illustration is out and I had the pleasure of interviewing and writing a profile of South Korean illustrator Oyow. Here is an excerpt:

“Some of the aesthetic weirdness comes from the work’s inchoate forms, as if Oyow is trying to conjure a dim memory that stubbornly refuses to come into sharp focus. Details are invariably lacking, especially facial details; bodies are reduced to sinuous noodles with budding appendages added only as needed. The cover of the book ‘Introverted Common Thoughts,’ which features an illustration from his ongoing series ‘The Gardeners,’ typifies Oyow’s approach. Hedges fill the landscape like massive stone Olmec heads, the features of their carved faces worn down by time and weather—or perhaps by pruning shears. The lone figure buries its face into one of the heads as if looking for something misplaced, creating a playful but simultaneously unnerving effect.

Notably, Oyow eschews using outlines to define—or contain—his forms. Like the Victorian Beggarstaffs’ most compelling posters, Oyow’s shapes tend to melt into each other, abstracting figures that often suggest far more than they depict. This quality can also make deciphering the images a little tricky, especially as there are few cues that create the illusion of depth.”

Read the entire profile (as well as prior articles) under Design is Play Articles. [MF]

Image courtesy of Oyow.

3×3 Magazine Profile of Illustrator Richard Borge

My profile of illustrator Richard Borge is currently featured in Issue 34 of 3×3, the Magazine of Contemporary Illustration. Here is one of the article’s paragraphs:

“In recent years Richard’s predilection for merging man (or animal) and machine has taken more playful forms, such as Japanese battery-powered tin robots, Rube Goldberg-like contraptions, and vintage windup toys. A spot illustration about 401K savings accounts for The Wall Street Journal is classic Borge. A windup wooden squirrel on wheels clutches a C-note acorn and tows a cart filled with more acorns. The squirrel’s imperfect paint job—line work is oddly varied, as if applied by an assembly-line worker late for lunch—together with its age-worn appearance lend the toy an aura of warmth and affability. Who knew that an illustration about retirement savings could be so fetching?”

Read the entire profile (as well as prior articles) under Design is Play Articles. [MF]

Image courtesy of Richard Borge.

3×3 Magazine Profile of Illustrator Giselle Potter

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing and writing the ICON profile of children’s book author and illustrator Giselle Potter for Issue 33 of 3×3, the Magazine of Contemporary Illustration. Read my opener below:

“Although Giselle Potter is dubious of comparisons to folk art or of the adjective naïve to describe her work, her illustrations nevertheless defy spatial representation as we know it—or at least as it has come to be known since the Italian Renaissance. There are no vanishing points: tabletops float at odd angles in relation to the floor like flotsam and jetsam; the seat of an armchair may mysteriously shrink to fit into a corner of the room; and the ground itself may rise up and loom behind a figure like an ocean wave poised to crash. The result is an often mysterious rendering of space that yields a mildly disorienting (but charming) flatness. ‘I have heard the word flat used to describe my pictures but I don’t see them as flat,’ admits Giselle. ‘Sometimes I wonder: Do we just all see things differently?’”

Read the entire profile (as well as prior articles) under Design is Play Articles. [MF]

Image courtesy of Giselle Potter.

3×3 Magazine Profile of Illustrator Jason Holley

Issue 32 of 3×3, the Magazine of Contemporary Illustration is out and I was honored to interview and write the ICON profile of illustrator Jason Holley. Here is my opening paragraph:

“Mutate, evolve, destroy, rebuild, repeat.” This mantra, from an Instagram post about a drawing class he teaches at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, encapsulates Jason Holley’s approach to image-making. “I have never found anything particularly appealing about perfection,” he says. “In fact, I think I have a hefty amount of distrust for the whole concept.” Like the illustrative equivalent of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Jason’s paintings can appear to be coming into being while simultaneously falling apart. It is as if each painting, regardless of its subject matter, surreptitiously alludes to the cycle of life. When I ask about the recurring themes of disintegration and decay in his work, Jason pivots. “It’s more than a visual theme—its physical reality, and it’s happening right now to all of us together at the same time. And I think it’s kind of beautiful.”

Read the entire profile (as well as prior articles) under Design is Play Articles. [MF]

Image courtesy of Jason Holley.

3×3 Magazine Profile of Illustrator Gary Baseman

Issue 31 of 3×3 Magazine is out and it’s a beaut! In addition to my profile of Gary Baseman, this issue includes the work of Gerard DuBois, Ori Toor, and Miriam Martincic. Here is the opener of my piece:

Gary Baseman is excited: his eyes shine, and he flashes a mischievous grin. Located somewhere between childlike delight and maniacal zeal, the effect is riveting. Gary’s exuberance has a way of building exponentially, his enthusiasm generating even more enthusiasm as he warms to a topic. One example: “I wouldn’t use ink—it had to be charcoal pencil. Just like my art, it had to be raw, it had to be rough, it had to feel legit. You could smudge it, you could mess it. Ink was a normal ball point pen. Anyone could use that: banks used that, corporations used that. I was an animal! I was human, I was real, I was raw!”

Read the entire profile (as well as prior articles) under Design is Play Articles. [MF]

3×3 Magazine Profile of Illustrator Katherine Lam

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]

3×3 Magazine Profile of Illustrator David Plunkert

Out now! My profile of illustrator David Plunkert in Issue 29 of 3×3 Magazine. Here is an excerpt:

What David refers to as his Block-Style are illustrations that hew to the Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots school of drawing: forms are reductive, flat, typically geometric, and in limited color palettes that suggest cheaply printed two- or three-color ephemera. David cites Pablo Picasso’s Cubist period and contemporary illustrators Brian Cronin and Phillippé Weisbecker as points of reference, as well as the minimalist, often primitive ethos of early twentieth century avant-garde toys. “Toys that Italian Futurist Fortunato Depero would have played with,” he explains.

That said, I would hazard a guess that the photomechanical aesthetic of ‘60s comics has seeped into David’s Block-Style via prepubescent osmosis. These illustrations are almost fetishistic in their evocation of the materiality of ink on paper: misaligned or overprinted elements, uneven textures, contaminated colors—as if someone failed to clean the press after the last print run—and imperfectly-formed Ben-Day dots.

Read the entire profile (as well as prior articles) under Design is Play Articles. [MF]

3×3 Magazine Profile of Illustrator Johanna Goodman

Out now! My profile of illustrator Johanna Goodman in Issue 28 of 3×3 Magazine. Here is an excerpt:

One of the signature aspects of Johanna’s Catalogue of Imaginary Beings is her reinvention of the body’s proportions. Massive, freeform torsos dominate these collages, with miniaturized heads, hands, and feet emerging like tiny appendages: whereas the standard head-to-body ratio taught in figure drawing classes is around 1:8, the head-to-body ratio of most Beings is roughly 1:14. The change in scale monumentalizes and mythologizes the figures even as it creates a somewhat comical effect—or if not comic, perhaps the tiny extremities simply render these powerful bodies a tad less menacing.

The unexpected shift in hierarchy—from the face to the body—creates opportunities for unexpected narratives. “Much like Nick Cave’s Soundsuits, so much can be expressed through the body,” Johanna observes. “Focusing on the figure frees me up to emphasize gesture and adornment and gives me the opportunity to make the body not a body at all, but something else—anything at all.”

Read the entire profile (as well as prior articles) under Design is Play Articles. [MF]

3×3 Magazine Profile of Illustrator Hudson Christie

Out now! My profile of illustrator Hudson Christie in Issue 27 of 3×3 Magazine. Here is an excerpt:

In conversation, Hudson Chrisite laughs easily, and often. He is amused by incongruity in art and film, and finds unintentional flaws especially endearing. “It’s why the original Star Wars trilogy—before George Lucas got his hands on CG and went back and “‘fixed” it—is a lot more fun to look at. Because you can see the seams,” he says. All of which may help explain Hudson’s aesthetic—what might be termed “blobular affability.”

This playful, childlike quality seems instantly familiar—perhaps because all of us at one time or another have had the experience of squeezing a handful of modeling clay or Play-Doh. The immediacy and accessibility of this visual language is one of its strengths: it is difficult to not be charmed by Hudson’s work.

Read the entire profile (as well as prior articles) under Design is Play Articles. [MF]

3×3 Magazine Profile of Illustrator Sandra Dionisi

Out now! My profile of illustrator Sandra Dionisi in Issue 26 of 3×3 Magazine. Here is an excerpt:

The quality of inscrutability, of an image that is simultaneously clear yet veiled, is a persistent feature of Sandra’s work, and it prompts not simply passive interest, but active contemplation. This invitation to contemplation is one of the recurring pleasures of Sandra’s work, and I find myself poring over the details of her illustrations in an effort to decipher the external cues of deeply internal and private states of being.

Sandra’s work is lovely—and worth your spending time with. Read the entire profile (as well as prior articles) under Design is Play Articles. [MF]

3×3 Magazine Profile of Illustrator Scott Bakal

Out now! My profile of illustrator Scott Bakal in Issue 25 of 3×3 Magazine. Here is an excerpt:

A persistent feature of Bakal’s sketchbook drawings is his continuous exploitation of the line’s potential for expression. Beyond simply establishing contours, it is a line that he unspools across surfaces like convoluted entrails; nestles against other lines to sculpt sinewy, striated forms; and repeats in arabesques to relentlessly fill space—as if he were a tattoo artist paid by the square inch.

“My line probably comes from being taught by Jack Potter and Sam Martine, who were both my instructors over 20 years ago,” reflects Bakal. “They were very contour-line heavy instructors and it never really left me. Although the quality of my line has changed—it’s become more ‘stitched’ for certain things and more flowing for others.”

What Bakal calls a stitched line is the result of linking many short, staccato gestures. In his loosest examples, the quality of this line can appear hesitant, or agitated. A sketchbook spread from his personal series “Skulls of Ultimate Death” features scratchy contour drawings of eight conventionalized skulls floating above a red and black field. The inked lines seem incised, as if Bakal is carving into a resistant surface rather than drawing on paper. Redolent of graffiti, the drawing conveys a raw immediacy.

Sandra’s work is lovely—and worth your spending time with. Read the entire profile (as well as prior articles) under Design is Play Articles. [MF]

3×3 Magazine Profile of Illustrator Dale Stephanos

Out now! My profile of illustrator Dale Stephanos in Issue 24 of 3×3 Magazine. Here is an excerpt:

Dale Stephanos is an illusionist who performs at least two magic tricks, both of which are transformative. The first trick is an act of creative ensoulment: the process by which Dale imbues his portraits not only with the illusion of life, but with sentience. “My obsession is really the face, the gaze,” he says. “I’m very concerned that the work feels as though it’s looking back at me with life behind the eyes.”

This impression—of a face “looking back” at the viewer—is partly achieved through blinkered framing, amorphous backgrounds, and a shallow depth of field. A charcoal drawing of Samuel Beckett typifies Dale’s approach: cropped tightly to the head, stripped of context, with ancillary details eliminated. In other portraits, soft-focus backgrounds recede and serve to thrust the foreground—always the face—toward the viewer. “Sergio Leone’s movies had a big impact on me. The way he’d linger on close-ups, building the tension, was amazing and frightening.” Generally fully frontal and with an implacable gaze, Dale’s portraits invariably draw the viewer’s attention to a set of luminous eyes.

Read the entire profile under Design is Play Articles. [MF]