Again, it’s the Folio Society’s BIA 24: I entered a piece for Neil Gaiman’s intricate short story about revenge, justice, myth and the Jacobite highlands, and it turned out to be one of the five runners up. So, I call it a win!
I am positively thrilled to be among the final five runners for the coveted Folio society’s book illustration award 2023! Over 750 illustrators worldwide were asked to take a scene from Ursula K. LeGuin’s short story „The fliers of Gy“ and illustrate it.
Like most, I settled for the dramatic part where the primitive tribes of Gy try to kill off their winged ones, with only the tiniest chance to fly away. Since I connect a certain mood to the era in which LeGuin was writing, I wanted to keep a sound of the sixties, seventies, manual styles and dominant lead colours in the artwork. We all don’t know where illustration is going in the age of generative AI and the even more generic story franchises of Marvel, Disney and the like, but I am confident that there will always be interesting pathes to be blazed and trodden by human curiosity and intellect. And who, in his or her right mind, wants to stay grounded anyway?