EXHIBITION - Out of Order

I recently supported the level 5 students by visiting their exhibition 'Out of Order' at Colours May Vary. With illustrations responding to the title 'Out of Order', there was a real breadth of responses and interpretations. It was great to see how briefs can be realised through exhibitions such as this, demonstrating the endless possibilities offered by the illustration discipline. While the exhibitions displayed a plethora of unique and sophisticated responses, two works resonated with me most through their concerns with character and shape.

This illustration from Billie Francis captures such a playful and comical tone of voice, through simple visual devices. Shape here seems pivotal to the tone of voice of the image, giving the characters a real sense of humour through elongated figures and tiny heads. It is interested that Francis has used texture to characterise these consistent visual devices. The monochrome figures work successfully through their contrasts of texture and value, mark making used to achieve tone and pattern. What appears to be chinagraph creates a very delicate and sensitive tone of voice, enhancing the delicate expression of the characters. Due to the consistency of the character shapes, the 'out of order' element is not immediately noticeable. This is perhaps a strength of the images as it invites the viewer to speculate and read further into the visual narrative of the illustration.

I also selected this image by Madeleine Richardson for its charming use of shape and narrative. Particularly focusing on the animals, Richardson employs very simplified shapes to gesture the animal form, achieving a very playful and stylised aesthetic, appropriate to the images wider focus on shape. The cut out approach, executed through digital media, achieves a lovely sense of the hand of the maker whilst incorporating strong block colours associated with a more digital solution. Marks and over-lays introduce screen-print qualities appropriate to the analogue tone of the cut-out based work.

Within a commercial outlet, it is interesting to consider how design shops and broader retail spaces can operate as exhibition spaces. As a shop that celebrates design, the exhibition was complimented perfectly by the products and surrounding media, demonstrating that their is an overlap between commercial illustrators and exhibiting illustrators.