Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Like/Dislike


The first expression was just “Wow” when I first saw her works. Kimi Kimoki is the illustrator I like the most from Illustration Now! Her use of color is very impressive and astonishing. For example, one of her works in the book, “Untitled” appeared in Bijouterie Frojo Ginette NY, portrays softness of the media she used, different light values, and reality we all live in. Kimi Kimoki said, “Create a fiction in which the characters and objects are suspended between illusion and truth.” All of her works contain this idea of creating fictional characters existing in reality. Kimi kimoki successfully highlighted the beauty that which our view tends to trivialize. These girls from each painting can be easily found in our lives. However, by beautifying them Kimoki demonstrated her intention to emphasize the beauty of trivial parts in daily life. I personally like to use watercolor and that is one of the reasons I picked Kimi Kimoki as my favorite illustrator. How she depicted girl’s hair is smooth and silky. I also enjoyed how her works are very vivid and bright. Especially I like how she blended the color that it looks realistic. But the background is mostly shaded in grayscale which helps the audience to focus on the characters. Overall, I was amazed by her use of color and blending skills.

It was hard for me to find an illustrator whom I dislike. All the works in Illustration Now! inspire me. However, I had to say Antoine Helbert is my least favorite illustrator. I personally like realistic illustration although not everyone agrees with me. Even though Antoine Helbert is a skillful artist and I can tell that by how detailed his works are, his concept is very confusing. His works make me wonder what his intention is. He said, “My creation is made up of contemporary and past references combined on the canvas and the screen,” I still do not understand the idea behind his works. The idea of combining a human and an animal somewhat disturbs me. While he uses a flat background similar to Kimoki, I find that too simple. At least Kimi Komoki shaded in order to distinguish the character from the background, Antoine Helbert did not even try. Also the composition is the same throughout his works. At least the works appeared in the book show only one composition. I wonder why he only portrays upper body when he could draw the whole figure so the viewer can get little more sense of what the concept is. Overall, I would not say I dislike Antoine Helbert, but his idea is too conceptual for me to appreciate. 

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