Pleasure Seekers
2017A visual essay about beach fashions of days gone by. Inspired by images sourced from online photo archives.
"By the mid-1920s Vogue magazine was telling its readers that “the newest thing for the sea is a jersey bathing suit as near a maillot as the unwritten law will permit.” "
"Men without shirts were banned from the beaches in Atlantic City, New Jersey, the reason being that the city didn’t want “gorillas on our beaches.” Only in 1937 did men actually have the right to go topless with their swimming trunks."
German-English Illustrator and Artist based in Brighton, UK
My work explores how illustration can be used as an active tool for understanding, interpreting and re-evaluating dominant narratives and discourse about historical events. 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. Often working with archival artefacts and personal testimony, I create narrative sequences and visual essays that explore my own relationship to history.
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. Often working with archival artefacts and personal testimony, I create narrative sequences and visual essays that explore my own relationship to history.