So I had a little epiphany while on one of my many train journeys. Illustration is by definition a powerful communicative tool, but so much of contemporary illustrative work takes as its basis light hearted whimsy and somewhat flimsy banter. It seems to me that beneath a thin film of decorative embellishments, this sort of work contains no real substance, is of no tangiable mettle. I don't mean to say this kind of work isn't worthy of attention and praise in its own right, but it makes no point and pushes forward no argument. It is in short, a fog horn cry of style of substance. Don't get me wrong - there's certainly a place for decoration, for pattern, for whimsical humour (or humour of any other, darker sort -all of which I'm a massive fan of), and I can't be excempt from this either. You only need to look at some of the older posts on here to see me whacking in little symbols with no particular thought to what meaning that might infuse the image with, other than that I liked the way they looked and they helped sew the compostion together. So I was thinking about all of this, and also musing on some of the bits I've been reading lately in the many art history books that I've got piled up all in wonky stacks all over the flat (from my previous incarnation as an academic student!), and I realised - Illustration can be the antithesis of vacuosity, needn't be arbitrary, definately not a pretty embellishment and nothing more. Beneath a veneer of aesthetic good looks, there should be statement, meaning, purpose, and it should shout out to whoever sees it in a punchy, arresting statement. In addressing issues that matter, illustration can be politically astute and present and just as important in the debating of issues as finely constructed text, studded with argument and proclaimations - but more than that too, it can be humanistic. In fact, it should be. Like the very best of fine art, the images made by illustrators should make their audience feel something, possibly to make them reevaluate a point of view, or at least see another side to it. An illustrator needs to take experience and infomation and refract it through the medium of aesthetics just enough that when it's presented back to us it creates something of a blazing comet of reactionary provocation.. Ah, I dunno. What I'm trying to say is that illustration is important and it's crucial to sometimes do serious work which questions and takes issue with considerable and heavyweight subjects. Everything in life should be questioned and debated, with nothing taken at face value. The image is a powerful tool, more instantly communicated than text, and accessible by a universal audience. When literacy in the general population was anything but the norm, stained glass told the stories of the bible to congregations. As most people could neither read nor understand latin (which the service would have been conducted in), these sequential frames of imagistic glassware acted basically as a tranparent graphic novel. Which I mention just to underline my point about illustration as an educational/persuasive/relevant tool. I've been doing a whole lot of research into the Constructivists recently, and I suppose it's helped me to realise all this - that particular realm of work is a perfect example of this marriage of beautifully constructed image and powerful undercurrent of intent and drive of values.
All of this might seem really obvious, but to me it was a small revelation. I hope it doesn't come across too pretensiously, I don't mean it to.
So with that in mind I've been working on a personal series about war, the first finished image of which is below. I should explain that some of the other images are slightly more hard hitting, and this is slightly more humane.. that's because I was thinking through all that stuff I've written about above, and then at Paddington something so totally opposite happened that slightly knocked my socks off. I was outside having a smoke, in that grotty bit round the back where the grey faced and wizened cheeks gang are forced to huddle, drawing frantically on their smokes before they run for the train. Anyway, so there's this tiny kid and she's kicking around one of those cardboard holders coffee shops put round drinks to stop you scalding yeself, playing footie with it. She kicks it onto my foot by mistake and looks concerned, obviously I didn't mind a bit and just grinned at her. But her parents tell her to come and retrieve it, which she does, and then she goes and hides shyly behind her Ma, peeping out at me now and again. Then she whispers something to her dad, who looks up at me and taps his finger on his cheek. She runs over and plants a sweet, dainty little kiss on my cheek and gives me this huge toothy grin. Her dad gave me an equally massive smile as I left and went back inside. It was so unexpected and so lovely as to be completely wonderful. Just a tiny little couple of moments between strangers, and these people were totally unaffected. It made me feel happy all the way home, and somewhat expelled all these murky thoughts about war I'd been having on the train up to Victoria. So I went and made this picture - it's humanity in war. An american G.I helps a wounded teenage German solider. Sides don't matter, the greater sphere of the war doesn't matter, for now all that matters is this older guy helping and comforting a scared, young fellow squaddie.
And after all that I made something a little more light hearted! Below, two pics on the theme of wanderlust. Because it's been far too long and I need to get away and go someplace strange and beautiful. Or just not the bloody Brighton-London-Oxford-Bristol farcial pattern I've gotten into.
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