Jockum Nordstrom

Paper cut outs and fine drawn line with a naive quality. He has an extroadinary range of drawing techniques.Really beautiful, mysterious images some seem quite fantastical!


Traditional folk art and the art of the insane inspires his work and a fascination with music and musicians, especially of the jazz variety.



He works as both a fine artist and illustrator.

He was born in 1963 Stockholm and still lives there today, you can clearly see the Swedish influence on is work.

Henrik Drescher

Henrik Drescher is someone who I find really inspiring. He is both conceptual and aesthetic. He is a great draughtsman and a fantastic imagination. He was born in Copenhagen and then moved to America, where he studied at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and then began his career as an lllustrator.

Drescher’s editorial illustrations appear regularly in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Time, and Rolling Stone. He has also written and illustrated several books, including books for children.
One of my favourite books is Postal Sceance, a book with an unusual concept...the idea is to send postcards (he made) to dead famous people such as William Blake and Joseph Beuys etc. He then records if they have been delivered or not delivered ie. if they have been delivered he understands that they have recieved the postcard (hence the name Postal Sceance!).





I really like his drawings, they are really fresh and lively. They seem very fluid.





I love the way he mixes found and drawn imagery.

Henrik refers to his work as a "junkyard of the imagination." He works in sketchbooks and notebooks which he uses both as professional source books and personal diaries. In these he picks through new ideas, used motifs, and discarded thoughts.

www.hdrescher.com

Edward Bawden

Since becoming a lino cutter I have come to realise what a genious Edward Bawden is, not only in his lino cuts but also in his paintings, design work, graphic posters, wallpaper designs etc etc.




What is really interesting a special about him is that he is a cross disciplinary artist/designer.

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I find this really inspiring. Illustration is somewhere between Graphics and fine Art and Bawden is a good example fo someone who can switch between these areas. I feel like I would like to have the ability to do this and also be experimental and turn my hand to many different areas.

Ristorante Immoratale

In Febuary I saw a Familie Flöz production of Ristorante Immortale. This was a silent performance with 4 actors all wearing masks (some of which played two characters).
Familie Flöz is an international pool of theater makers – actors, musicians, dancers, directors, mask-, light- and costume designers, dramatic advisors and other good souls from ten nations. They are based in Berlin and have shown here regularly at Admiraldspalast Theatre (http://www.admiralspalast.de/).


"It is a moving yet bizarre family that apparently rose up from the dark womb of the earth through a long shaft to reach daylight for the very first time. It was this very image that put Familie Flöz on the map of international theater in 1996. Behind this metaphor is also the philosophy of an entirely distinct working method of this ever-changing group of theater makers."

www.floez.net

William Kentridge at Hamburger Bahnhof

One of the most amazing artists adn draftsman. His animations are incredible! I recently saw an exhibition of his at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin. One of which was part of an exhibition called 'Schmerz' ie pain this piece by Kentridge was called 'The History of the main complaint'

His animations are made with a single piece of paper,unlike all other hand drawn animations. So you can see the drawing being rubbed out and made over again. They are very beautiful.


Also there was an exhibition on his work for a series of animations of 'Journey to the Moon'.



inspiration for Kentridge (above)



The Hamburger Bahnhof is also well worth a visit. It is the old disued station of Berlin turned into a gigantic gallery. All 20th century art and beyond from Twombly to Beuys set in an immense, architectural space.

ATAK German Illustrator

ATAK aka Georg Barber

He was born in Frankfurt but has lived and worked as an artist/comci artist/illustrator in Berlin for many years!

He is an Illustrator who's work I have been collecting since being in Berlin is ATAK. I recently have bought one of his prints which I am delighted with!



Today I bought a comic of his called 'Alice'. This is comic based on 'Alice in Wonderland' but with a different plot and a subversive edge. He is also included in the 'Die Tollen Hefte Series', with ADA - von Gertrude Stein
Die Tollen Hefte Nr.25 made in Septemaber 2005.

Alice



Die Tollen Hefte images





His images are all hand drawn with handwritten text also. He draws inspiration from many areas but prodominently from 1800 to 1900s. His images can be quite dark and wicked but there is a strong sense of humour and irony. They also have a strong sense of nostalgia.

I find his work really inspiring as I love his clever compositions, his reference points, his quirky characters and odd narratives. Also the way he makes them with lots of pattern, spots, naive line, colour and over lapping colour.

Research Project

I saw an amazing 'live animation' called "Horse Head"by the company Faulty Optic last year at Unity Theatre in Liverpool. The story is very surreal, it was about a circus acrobat who broke her leg in an acrobatic performance and then felt depressed about her lost life. Eventually she becomes the second half of a play horse.

The puppets, effects, the way they moved and the different ways of using scenery was really interesting. They had an actor on stage in character making all the sound effects with very low tech equipment.

I intend to contact them and see if I could look at how they made this and what they are doing currently. Furthermore, to see if I could make something for one of their productions...At least learn how. They do not have a website so I will have to go through untiy theatre.




(now contacted and found website...waiting for a reply from them)

For a time I have been making a set of circus characters so I would like to build upon this.

I would like to base this project on puppets used for theatre. I would like to look at the production of the puppets, how they are used throughout the production. I would like to look at back in time at the first production of puppets in theatre through to today.