Vivienne Flesher: the pastel psychedelic (lecture 8)

Vivienne Flesher grew up in New York where she attended Parsons School of Design in aspiration of becoming an illustrator. Not fully confident in her ability, she worked for both Harper’s (literary mag) and SWANK (porno mag) straight out of university in order to help develop her portfolio. From there she received her big break in the 1980s with the first American Illustration annual, to which her illustrations were featured multiple times. Since then, she has had the opportunity to work on many editorial, book design, and personal projects that have landed her success.

Flesher’s sketchy and, at times, random style is very compelling. Her use of colour definitely shows off the psychedelic times, but in a restrained way. Personally I appreciate this intentionality in her art, and also that she is a multi-media artist. She is okay with working in pastels/charcoal and bringing it into photoshop to improve her design.