Computer Arts Gallery: September 2011

Mathis Rekowski
Location: Berlin
Job: Illustrator

Mathis Rekowski is a self-taught Berlin-based illustrator. Having studied media technology and then worked for more than six years in a major German advertising agency, Rekowski decided to take the leap into the freelance world. Driven by a love of drawing and painting, he’s worked for an impressive list of clients, including DDB, Volkswagen, Orange, Skoda, Ragwear, Design Report, DELTA and ZEIT.

Volkswagen
Mathis Rekowski created this image for Volkswagen with the agency DDB Berlin. The VW campaign won an award in the Illustration category at the 2011 ADC festival

Mathis Rekowski
Location: Berlin
Job: Illustrator

Mathis Rekowski is a self-taught Berlin-based illustrator. Having studied media technology and then worked for more than six years in a major German advertising agency, Rekowski decided to take the leap into the freelance world. Driven by a love of drawing and painting, he’s worked for an impressive list of clients, including DDB, Volkswagen, Orange, Skoda, Ragwear, Design Report, DELTA and ZEIT.

Last Trip
The first image in a new series called ‘Last Trip’, which brings Rekowski’s psychedelic sensibility to the fore

Mathis Rekowski
Location: Berlin
Job: Illustrator

Mathis Rekowski is a self-taught Berlin-based illustrator. Having studied media technology and then worked for more than six years in a major German advertising agency, Rekowski decided to take the leap into the freelance world. Driven by a love of drawing and painting, he’s worked for an impressive list of clients, including DDB, Volkswagen, Orange, Skoda, Ragwear, Design Report, DELTA and ZEIT.

Pick Me Up
This piece was created for the Pick Me Up art fair in London, where Rekowski was featured as part of an exhibition showcasing the artwork of 20 up-and-coming artists

Adam Hancher
Location: Bristol, UK
Job: Freelance illustrator and designer

Adam Hancher is a freelance illustrator and designer from the West Midlands, and currently residing in Bristol having studied illustration at UWE. He has a solid client base, featuring the likes of Gestalten, GQ, Wired and The Big Issue.

Inspired by all forms of design, Hancher’s niche is print, and he’s especially fond of screenprinting and lithography. Although he predominantly works with digital media, he often emulates the process of printing, and describes his method as “breaking up my drawing into layers of black ink, then layering and colouring them digitally.” He continues: “I don’t always stay 100 per cent true to this process, but this methodology really shapes how my work looks.” In terms of subject matter, Hancher is driven by “anything” with a narrative, naming “lone characters and wanderers, and fantasy and western” as some of his key inspirations.

Struggling?
A favourite personal project of Hancher’s. “Drawing the plants became therapeutic and it was good to play around with colour,” he explains. “Put simply, it’s just about one person’s struggle to get where they want to go.”

Adam Hancher
Location: Bristol, UK
Job: Freelance illustrator and designer

Adam Hancher is a freelance illustrator and designer from the West Midlands, and currently residing in Bristol having studied illustration at UWE. He has a solid client base, featuring the likes of Gestalten, GQ, Wired and The Big Issue.

Inspired by all forms of design, Hancher’s niche is print, and he’s especially fond of screenprinting and lithography. Although he predominantly works with digital media, he often emulates the process of printing, and describes his method as “breaking up my drawing into layers of black ink, then layering and colouring them digitally.” He continues: “I don’t always stay 100 per cent true to this process, but this methodology really shapes how my work looks.” In terms of subject matter, Hancher is driven by “anything” with a narrative, naming “lone characters and wanderers, and fantasy and western” as some of his key inspirations.

Gods Without Men
Commissioned by GQ to accompany an article about Hari Kunzru’s novel Gods Without Men, Hancher created this image to reflect three different narratives from the book: “It shows a rock star escaping to a motel, a lost child at the turn of the century and hippy cults that watch the skies.”

Abby Hambleton
Location: Manchester, UK
Job: Creative designer

Originally from Sheffield and fresh from the Manchester School of Art with a first-class honours in Design and Art Direction, Abby Hambleton is creating some vibrant designs up north. She has a penchant for anything colourful and fun: “I’m inspired by work that’s bright, bold and beautiful, and anything that’s a bit kitsch is bound to catch my eye, too.” It figures that she’s a huge fan of Florida-based studio Friends With You and No Days Off studio in London, and would be happy creating this kind of work in the future.

Hambleton highlights the importance of creating something that inspires the artist as much as it does the audience: “I think if you’re doing something you’re not enthusiastic about or interested in, the end result probably won’t interest anyone else either.”

Her favourite piece of work to date is a logo and graphic symbols for a friend’s fashion collection. “I was delighted to see my designs applied to something other than paper or a computer screen,” she says.

Super Cube
One of Hambleton’s personal projects, the inspiration behind Super Cube was to design a poster for a futuristic nightclub and art space. An innovative venture, the venue is an immersive audio-visual experience with the interior walls being made entirely of video screens.

Abby Hambleton
Location: Manchester, UK
Job: Creative designer

Originally from Sheffield and fresh from the Manchester School of Art with a first-class honours in Design and Art Direction, Abby Hambleton is creating some vibrant designs up north. She has a penchant for anything colourful and fun: “I’m inspired by work that’s bright, bold and beautiful, and anything that’s a bit kitsch is bound to catch my eye, too.” It figures that she’s a huge fan of Florida-based studio Friends With You and No Days Off studio in London, and would be happy creating this kind of work in the future.

Hambleton highlights the importance of creating something that inspires the artist as much as it does the audience: “I think if you’re doing something you’re not enthusiastic about or interested in, the end result probably won’t interest anyone else either.”

Her favourite piece of work to date is a logo and graphic symbols for a friend’s fashion collection. “I was delighted to see my designs applied to something other than paper or a computer screen,” she says.

Train Of Thought
Commissioned by The Partners to develop an identity for a touring gallery situated in hospitals, Hambleton designed a range of drawing materials, some featuring creative prompts for hospital patients to get involved with artwork.

Sophie Alda
Location: London, UK
Job: Illustrator and artist

Sophie Alda is an illustrator and artist living and working in east London. Since graduating from Brighton University with a BA in Illustration in 2009, she’s worked on freelance projects large and small, exhibited throughout the country, and has even found the time to set up a screenprinting workshop in her kitchen.

Contemporary yet versatile, much of the spirit in Alda’s work is derived from her muted but striking pastel-based colour palette. Working in gouache and digitally, her work has the flat, bold finish of a screenprint, focusing on character, architecture and subtle narrative.

She takes a flexible approach to her work, noting: “The final images don’t always turn out exactly as you originally plan – however, you make any necessary changes as you go. You have to be adaptable.” Alda is also a joint founder of Archaea Press, producing artist-designed books, cards and apparel. She’s represented by the Handsome Frank agency.

Demiurge Flats
An image from a book based on the Gnostic creation myth, a subject that Alda finds “interesting, varied, creative, far-fetched and exciting.”

Sophie Alda
Location: London, UK
Job: Illustrator and artist

Sophie Alda is an illustrator and artist living and working in east London. Since graduating from Brighton University with a BA in Illustration in 2009, she’s worked on freelance projects large and small, exhibited throughout the country, and has even found the time to set up a screenprinting workshop in her kitchen.

Contemporary yet versatile, much of the spirit in Alda’s work is derived from her muted but striking pastel-based colour palette. Working in gouache and digitally, her work has the flat, bold finish of a screenprint, focusing on character, architecture and subtle narrative.

She takes a flexible approach to her work, noting: “The final images don’t always turn out exactly as you originally plan – however, you make any necessary changes as you go. You have to be adaptable.” Alda is also a joint founder of Archaea Press, producing artist-designed books, cards and apparel. She’s represented by the Handsome Frank agency.

Birth Of
Also based on the Gnostic creation myth, ‘Birth Of’ is a gouache painting on paper that was scanned and printed.

Ivan Petrusevski
Location: Skopje, Macedonia
Job: Graphic designer

“When I was supposed to pick a college, graphic design and illustration weren’t an option in Macedonia, so I chose art history instead,” says Ivan Petrusevski. Not that a setback so trivial would stop him from pursuing a career in design. By the age of 20 he had his first design job, and went on to a career in advertising.

Today, Petrusevski works for Futura 2/2, one of the most interesting design agencies in the Balkans. Over the past six years, he’s participated in group shows and had his work featured in a number of publications. In 2009, he won an EVGE award from the Greek Graphic Design and Illustration Awards website for Best T-shirt Design.

Petrusevski’s work is mainly influenced by J-pop, vintage illustration and street art. He says: “What I like about my work is the childish approach, and I hope that the kid inside will stick with me a bit longer.”

Winter
As a big winter lover, Petrusevski thoroughly enjoyed creating this illustration. Using symmetry and just a few colours, this piece looks complex and yet simple at the same time.

Ivan Petrusevski
Location: Skopje, Macedonia
Job: Graphic designer

“When I was supposed to pick a college, graphic design and illustration weren’t an option in Macedonia, so I chose art history instead,” says Ivan Petrusevski. Not that a setback so trivial would stop him from pursuing a career in design. By the age of 20 he had his first design job, and went on to a career in advertising.

Today, Petrusevski works for Futura 2/2, one of the most interesting design agencies in the Balkans. Over the past six years, he’s participated in group shows and had his work featured in a number of publications. In 2009, he won an EVGE award from the Greek Graphic Design and Illustration Awards website for Best T-shirt Design.

Petrusevski’s work is mainly influenced by J-pop, vintage illustration and street art. He says: “What I like about my work is the childish approach, and I hope that the kid inside will stick with me a bit longer.”

Fuck Yeah
Petrusevski describes this personal illustration as “one of those nonsense things that runs through your brain early in the morning. It’s a kind of digital doodling – because you aren’t sure where you’re going or what the outcome might be.”