Spot Metaphors

Reduced to proper size and all laid out on a nice .psd. All that's left is to mount it tonight.

From left to right
Top: The Divine - Shadows; Revolution - Animals; Greed - Sequence; Love - Hands
Bottom: Leadership - Interior; Fear - Cityscape; Aging - Still-Life; Isolation - Juxtaposition

Holly Exley

Holly Exley is based in London and has an interesting sort of watercolor/collage style.

Rebecca Gray

Rebecca Gray is another artist from England and just graduated from the University of Westminster. She does a lot of wildlife drawings and portraits.

Kristina Marie Hofmann

Kristina Marie Hofmann went to the Royal College of Art in England. I first found her art on the Victoria and Albert museum website. She was a runner-up in 2009 in the V&A illustration award student category. It's been near close to impossible for me to find much else on her.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/films/p006rfz3

She also has done an animation that was shown on BBC (link above)

Si Clark

Taken from his shop on prickie.com:

Simon Clark is an illustrator/ animator from England. Having graduated from Bournemouth Art College this year, he is now working freelance on a variety of projects.

http://www.si-clark.co.uk/gallery-professional.html

Yao Xiao

From Yao's website:

Yao Xiao is born in Mainland China in 1990.Following her passion for art and for exploration, Yao came to the United States alone at the age of 16. She has found herself creating artworks in Chicago, Seattle, Memphis—and now, New York City. Yao is currently studying at the School of Visual Art in NYC, majoring in illustration.
Yao has won awards from the Kennedy center for Scenic Art and have been published in the U.S. and in China. Her recent publications include books for Roland Music Co. and the Tranmetropolitan Art Book. Her art is featured on Dr. Sketchy’s blog and also, Warren Ellis’s website. Other places her art has appeared in include the Licton Springs Review and Carpe Diem Review.

Wenqing Yan

Wenqing Yan is a student at UC Berkeley who has a big presence on deviantART. She is from China and has now gotten her Flash comic "Knite" published. Two things important to her in her art are environmentalism and cyber activism.

http://fav.me/d2hzam9
http://fav.me/d23ifgd
http://fav.me/d1wio3a
http://fav.me/d3lllcp
http://fav.me/d3bgxmh

Illustrator Research

I have been doing some searching for Illustration students and recent grads, and so far I have come up with a list of people I have found.

• Wenqing Yan
• Yao Xiao
• Si Clark
• Kristina Marie Hofmann
• Rebecca Gray
• Holly Exley

So far, I have confirmed an interview with Si Clark. Since he is the first to respond, I have decided to interview him.

Visual Metaphors 10/10

This is an image I found on Shane's blog. He is making a statement about Harry Potter fanfiction (the pornographic kind), and comparing it to The Graduate.

Visual Metaphors 9/10

This is an image about smoking. It uses the cigarettes and makes them look like the Twin Towers burning. It is therefore a powerful image that shows how smoking kills so many people.

Visual Metaphors 8/10

This is an image I found on Flickr of a bunch of horror movie villains standing in line for something. The words "All aboard the remake train" therefore add to the humor and message of this piece. In other words, we are making way too many horror movie remakes (remakes in general quite honestly).

Visual Metaphors 7/10

This image is of a wedding cake, with the little bride and groom on top. The cake is cut in half. Therefore I can infer that this is a comment about marriage and divorce.

Visual Metaphors 6/10

This image is of a nuclear missile. Written on the missile is "Iran" written in Farsi. Inside the missile, a dove peeks its head out. I can infer that this image is about Iran's nuclear program. The dove is a symbol usually used for peace. I can therefore infer that while Iran has a nuclear program going on, and although it seems threatening, the dove shows peace. I can see this as either Iran is making empty threats, or while some of Iran is threatening war, the other part of Iran just wants peace.

Visual Metaphors 5/10

This is an image I remember seeing in middle school when a woman came to our school to talk to us about abstinence. "Safe sex" is clearly depicted here as two safes having sex.

Visual Metaphors 4/10

This image is of a cigarette. The cigarette is unraveling, but the end of the cigarette is shaped like a bandaid. Based on this, I can tell that smoking is going to lead to health risks. Therefore, smoking is a way of hurting yourself.

Visual Metaphors 3/10

This image spells out RISK. Instead of an I, a breaking rope stands in its place. The phrase that comes to mind is "hanging by a thread," which is exactly what is happening here. It doesn't just place a word in front of us, it shows what that word means.

Visual Metaphors 2/10

This is an image of a cherry blossom tree. The petals are shaped like nuclear symbols. When I see the cherry blossom tree, I think of Japan, and seeing the nuclear symbol makes me think of the atomic bomb. It therefore makes me think of the bomb being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Visual Metaphors 1/10

This visual metaphor is about airlines tacking fees onto everything. This uses the image of a child riding one of those kiddie rides that you would find outside of the supermarket. The coin slot has more coin slots attached to it, showing that attached to one fee is another, then another, then another. It makes people not want to fly anymore due to costs, and that makes this kid not want to ride the ride anymore. It makes him sad.