YES!

Hello there,

I hope you’re well. I’ve been so damned busy recently! Since the start of 2014 the amazing ‘Reframe’ project, (I’ve previously mentioned here and here), has taken me to Algiers, Istanbul and Brussells with my good friends Ilya and Hannah Berry. In those places we meet and made new friends with many great artists and movers and shakers. I feel incredibly lucky to have been involved. In the next couple of week’s I’ll post some photos and sketchbook pages from those trips.

In January I was contacted by Laura Malacart, a cross-disciplinary visual artist,  who had developed a multi-media project built around the portrait of a 27-year-old 'non-verbal' autistic man. In spite of his lack of language, Kyle had found a ‘voice’ through music: Laura Malacart’s work was focussed on the political identity of his ‘non-verbal voice' as well as exploring the complexity of his physical voice in his multifaceted expressions.

Laura commissioned me to make the drawings for a 6-chapter graphic story to be experienced alongside a non-narrative video work called Onomatopoeia. I have drawn the story ‘YES!’ on the basis of her documentary video and photographic material, while and her script reports verbatim conversations collected during months of filming her subjects.  For the launch of the event we have published a limited edition of the story on tabloid format, since she first learned about Kyle from a tabloid clipping.

She conducting the first two symposia at the Dana Centre and King’s College to launch our project and instigate a cross-disciplinary debate around the project’s core themes. Laura is a seriously talented individual who is committed to using her artistic practice to intervene on social issues. I highly recommend you seek her work out and follow her practice and how it develops.

Page 1, Chapter 6, YES

Here are the links to the event’s she’s staging, and the blog I produced to host the comic I drew.

Blog

Event at the Dana Centre this coming Wednesday

Event at King College London on the 26th

This week I got some tremendously exciting news about Helix, the digital comic I worked on last year with David Blandy and Dr Adam Rutherford. I can’t say much now, but will fill you in very soon.

And to top it all off, tomorrow is ELCAF. I’ll be flogging me wares on the Small Press Table alongside many other great artists. It’ll be a total blast! 

 

Reframe Reframed

Hello there,

And a very happy new year to you.

Just a quick post following on from the last one. The piece I made for the Reframe exhibition has been given a new year overhaul in preparation for it's up coming exhibitions in Algier (in association with FIBDA, the Algiers annual comics expo), Istanbul and Belgium.

The version I posted here at the end of last year was made with a very short deadline and as such there were a few things that niggled me about the colour and some of the compositional elements. Anyhow, I've tried to put those things right as far as I can and I post the new pages here so that you can be the judge.

Next Wednesday: REFRAME!

Next Wednesday (23rd October) will see the launch of Reframe an exhibition organized and hosted by Free Word of 9 comics by 9 nine artists from the UK, Turkey and Algeria. My humble offering will be joined by works by the UK's Hannah Berry and IYLA aka Ed Hillyer. I was asked to be a part of the project by Paul Gravett, thanks Paul! Here's the promotional stuffs:

Pioneering artists from three contrasting countries unite to create an innovative exhibition of new work exploring our contemporary attitudes to Europe. Bringing together new voices from Turkey, Algeria and the UK, Reframe invites nine emerging artists to use their distinctive styles and viewpoints to 'reframe' perspectives through a series of new graphic short stories that examine the cultural, social and political dynamics between Europe and each of the participating countries.

Here's a sneeky peek at my contribution:

And here's a link to an interview I did for the Free Word website: http://www.freewordcentre.com/content/2013/10/wr-daniel-locke/ 

(I also designed the logo)

A Sneeky Helix Peek

Here's a sneeky peek at some of the drawings I made for Helix. The show opens next Friday (25th) and goes on until the 30th.

David Blandy and I will be talking about the work we made together with Adam Rutherford, live at 1.45 on the Monocle magazine podcast, radio thingy this coming Saturday, if you fancy listening in, it'd be lovely to have you.

Helix

This past year I've been working with artist David Blandy and scientist Adam Rutherford on a digital graphic novel called 'Helix'. The piece considers the conceptual link between the creative process and the history of DNA. I've made all the illustrations as well as collaborating on the story and content. The work is going on show at the GV Art Gallery in London town from the 24th of this month.

HIc&HOc&HIc&HoC&HIc&Hoc!

A wee while ago,

The most excellent Lizz Lunney and Joe List contacted me to ask if I'd be interested in contributing a strip to Hic & Hoc's Humour Anthology, the UK Edition. I said hell yeh! And now it's here, it's real and includes work by some of the coolest names in British comics.

Kristyna Baczynski, Becky Barnicoat, Dan Berry, Fred Blunt, Gareth Brooks, Clark Burscough, Abe Christie, Stephen Collins, Joe Decie, James “Couk” Downing, Rick Eades, Jonathan Edwards, Liz Greenfield, Isaac Lenkiewicz, Dan Locke, Gary Northfield, Luke Pearson, Philippa Rice, Jack Teagle, Donya Todd, Timothy Winchester, Ben Wright.  Cover by Jon Boam.

That's One Hell of a Helix 2

A few months ago I mentioned that I been working with David Blandy and Dr Adam Rutherford on a illustrated history of DNA, I thought I'd pop one of the finished illustrations up for you to have a gander at. The finished work will comprise 80 pictures in digital graphic novel called 'Helix'. It's going to be launched in October, but my deadline is rapidly approaching so I've been chained to the drawing board these past few weeks!

Tomorrow I'll be at this years Elcaf. I've made a new comic for it all special like. If you're in the Bethnal Green area do come along, it'll be great to see you.