Month: March 2019

Noma Bar:

Noma Bar is a graphic designer, illustrator, and artist who is renowned for his negative space artworks that have adorned the covers of over 100 magazines. His graphic works are celebrated for their impact and simplicity and they translate a sensitive subject into thought-provoking art that exposes social and political situations with a wry sense of juxtaposition.

Bar does this by cleverly using negative space. With a limited palette, he subtlety and precisely manipulates shapes and forms where familiar symbols and pictograms evolve to form new meaning. He uses this technique best when dealing with social and political issues that are illustrated with a hidden twist of humour.

Continue reading “Present Technology and Tradition /// New Horizons: Noma Bar (b. 1973)”

Chris Ware:

Chris Ware is a cartoonist known for his New Yorker magazines covers and is hailed as a master of the comic art form. He has contributed cartoons and many covers to the New Yorker since 1999 and his complex graphic novels tell stores that reflect on the role that memory plays in constructing identity.

Ware’s style of comic art is like no other’s. His work is usually devoid of the hatching or rendering that is found in most comics and his drawings are mostly outlines filled with colour. Linear perspective is often flattened or replaced with orthographic projection and he sidesteps atmospheric perspective in favour of utilizing colour for design and mood. His often muted colours are carefully chosen in relationship to not only to other colours on the panel, but also to the entire page as a work of design. In addition, Ware plays with the conventions of comic art page design and storytelling.

Continue reading “New Forms: Chris Ware (b. 1956)”

Francis Livingston:

Francis Livingston is an American painter and is considered to be in the top ranks of American illustrators. In the beginning of his career, he painted primarily in a monochromatic style until he studied the work of the Bay Area Figurative Movement. This led him to experimenting with colour and developing a fondness for the California and French Impressionists.

Livingston’s paintings and works are famous and unique. He painted the Santa Cruz boardwalk for 8 years and did numerous portrayals of scenes from New York City and Coney Island. In these, he focussed mainly on the dramatic architecture and colour. However, his paintings of western landscapes and pueblo architecture are what makes him one of the West’s premier living artists: he is able to capture colours and light effects that are unique to west.

Continue reading “New Voices: Francis Livingston (b. ?)”