1941
2012 This work was the start of my ongoing fascination with the distortion and suppression of memory, and my exploration into ways in which the past is represented and remembered. It began as an interpretation of an album of my Grandmother’s photographs containing photos of her time as a sports teacher in North Germany during the 1930’s.
Her numerous photo albums detail so many events in her life, but in this album there is a sense that something is missing. An undecipherable letter is placed next to an image of an unidentified high ranking German official. Photographs of sport camps follow, holidays, her life as a teacher. And then photographs of the empty Nuremberg stadium, with no explanation for her being there, just a date. This series re-interprets these and other found archive images. Within it, the process of drawing becomes a metaphor for the distortion of memory and the biased nature of history.
German-English Illustrator, based in Brighton, UK
I am an illustrator and educator, with a
particular focus on sequential narrative and drawing.
Much of my work focuses on exploring how illustration can be used as an active tool for understanding, interpreting and re-evaluating dominant narratives and discourse about historical events, asking: How can illustration add to our understanding of history, how can it challenge it?
I am interested in exploring and highlighting the ways in which history is recorded, suppressed, remembered and distorted. I have become particularly interested in how meaning and underlying power structures contained within archival records can be interpreted through the act of drawing.
More recent projects and research have become focused on the use of auto-ethnographic practices within comic making, the use of digital stimuli within illustration, and expanded definitions of illustration practice.
Much of my work focuses on exploring how illustration can be used as an active tool for understanding, interpreting and re-evaluating dominant narratives and discourse about historical events, asking: How can illustration add to our understanding of history, how can it challenge it?
I am interested in exploring and highlighting the ways in which history is recorded, suppressed, remembered and distorted. I have become particularly interested in how meaning and underlying power structures contained within archival records can be interpreted through the act of drawing.
More recent projects and research have become focused on the use of auto-ethnographic practices within comic making, the use of digital stimuli within illustration, and expanded definitions of illustration practice.