Olivier Kugler's Practice: Study Task 2

'Kugler’s astonishing drawings represent life as it is – overloaded, incidental, full of half-finished thoughts and superfluous detail.'

Charlotte simmonds, 2012 article for itsnicethat.com

Olivier Kugler is one of my favourite Illustrators. Every time I look at his work my initial response is 'wow'. The level of detail in his images is incredible, yet they they don't seem static at all. There is such an energy to them and an atmosphere, they appear very caught in the moment. There is also an interesting relationship between line and colour and I love the way in which they don't conform with one another. Kugler is very selective about what he fills in, which works to draw your focus to certain elements of the image in addition to creating a sense of space. Areas of colour also overspill shapes, giving his work an 'incidental', 'half-finished' feel, something which appears difficult to pull off when working digitally. In addition to the aesthetics of his work I am also interested in its content. The way in which he often makes a point without giving his own opinion is really effective. I also adore how he embodies text from interviews within his images. His illustrations don't simply decorate an article, but they tell the whole story in a direct and interesting way. They are so rich that there is no need for an accompanying text at all. 

When creating a reportage Illustration, Kugler starts by interviewing people on location in addition to taking reference photos and maybe doing some rough sketches. When he returns to his studio, he then creates draft images from his photographs, which he sends to the art director of the project he’s working on. Once they have been approved, he then moves on to transforming them into large scale, detailed pencil drawings (generally A1), which he scans in. He then edits these images digitally, adding colour and playing around with composition, while he re-listens to the subject's interview. He then writes the text by hand, before scanning it in and adding it to the final image.

 




Kugler grew up in Simmozheim, a small village in Germany. Since he was a child, he has had an interest in drawing, something which was introduced to him buy his father who was also an artist. He remembers falling in love with art when he received a Tin Tin comic book for Christmas. He used to practice copying illustrations from this book. Since he was a child he has enjoyed drawing from reference, something which he continues to do today. Many of his infuences are European artists and they include Otto Dix (a German painter who was also interested in the theme of war) and Bande Dessinée (a French comic book artist who also enjoyed series drawing). Both these influence are evident in Kugler's practice.

Kugler's reportage illustrations have appeared in many publications, including The Guardian, The New Yorker and the New York Times. His work therefore reaches a wide range of readers internationally. Kugler completed a Graphic Design degree and worked for three years as a designer in industry before getting bored (perhaps accounting for his complex digital skills). He wanted to do illustration work but he couldn't get any commissions. He therefore applied for a scholarship and completed an Illustration MA in New York City. Here, he completed his first visual essay and discovered the power of text and image, which developed into a love for reportage Illustration. It is something which embodies lots of his interests. It allows him to draw, travel and talk to new interesting people, all things that he is passionate about. With the high cost of living in London, finance is something which still effects Kugler's practice today. Even though reportage illustration is what he is passionate about he still takes editorial jobs on the side, drawing things like maps and vegetables. He doesn't mind doing these jobs but they cut into the time that he could be using to complete more worthwhile projects.

In addition to his love for drawing from observation, Kugler's interest in raising awareness for Syrin refugees helps to fuel his interest in Reportage Illustration. In his 2015 interview with Grafik, Kugler spoke about how in his recent project he chose to visit the small Domiz Syrian refugee camp in Iraqi Kurdistan. He chose to go here was because it had little to no coverage in the media, compared with larger camps. He wanted to give the people a voice. Salome. M looks at Kugler’s work from an interesting perspective in his article ‘Portraits of Hope’, for Peardrop. He talks about how Kugler takes a situation, which is projected upon in a very negative, dehumanising way by the media and stands against it by putting his own interesting spin on the situation.

'The necessity to challenge this narrative has become more critical than ever and Olivier Kugler, through his documentary illustrations, does so in the most eloquent way’.

Kugler also speaks about how he thinks in a political way, yet he refrains from posing his own opinion in his work. Instead he remains neutral and focuses on storytelling and giving the people a voice. This is an interesting way to reflect upon the situation and perhaps makes his work more accessible.

'I think politically but the drawings aren’t consciously political, it’s more of a human, neutral observation.'

Drawing from direct observation is something, which I personally really enjoy and Kugler's work constantly inspires me to continue drawing to get better at it. His use of line and shape is also incredible and his digital process is something I really want to learn more about. Does he trace over his drawings or does he turn them straight into vectors? How does he tweak the composition digitally? How much information does he include in his original A1 drawings? How does he add in scanned in text towards the end of creating an image? 

I Want To Be An Illustrator

Today I decided that I want to be an illustrator! Since starting the course I have been a bit wobbly and and on many occasions have considered moving to fine art. I felt that by doing illustration, a huge part of me has been ripped away, as I’m un able to oil paint. This is my passion. I even received an email from my school art teacher saying I had made a massive mistake, one which I’m going to regret. This also means that I feel constantly set back as everything is very new to me.

However, today something switched. I know that I want to do illustration. Whats better than being able to draw all day long? I think that this switch was down to really being immersed in the visual culture. Before coming here, I had lots of favourite artists but I didn’t know many illustrators. With so much of the work I’ve seen my response has been I want to do that. I have a goal, something which I never really had with painting.

During Big Heads, Stanley Chao spoke about how he used to paint but he moved to working digitally when he saw the digital age taking over. Having done a painting, it was a massive process getting it photographed, then hiring a courier to deliver it to the buyer. Working digitally, all you have to do is send it. This was an interesting point, something which I had never considered. 

What is a Practice? Discussion

We spent this mornings session discussing the question ‘what is an illustrator’s practice?’. The word practice is one which I am familiar with but have never really picked apart before. It is clear that ‘practice’ is quite a broad term relating to something far bigger than simply an artist’s ‘style’. It includes things like where they live, their knowledge, interests, family, ethics and their hobbies, all of which feed into their style. It also includes the business side of their work, their client base and how they make a living from the work they produce. 

Someone in the session talked about ‘expanding knowledge’, which I thought was interesting as I wasn’t sure what they meant by this. Were they talking about the illustrator’s own knowledge forming a practice informed by research? Or were they talking about the knowledge of practice and our expanding knowledge of the subject area? Either way this is an interesting idea.

I also thought that the way we looked at and attempted to define ‘style’ was interesting. It is not simply a visual outcome but something which is fuelled by a range of sources within the artist’s practice. It is defined by the artists influence, subject matter, media, motives and the way in which their work reflects their personality, life experience, ideology and many other things. Matt also talked about the fact that we should also all stop thinking about ’style’ so much and should never try to force one upon ourselves. Instead we should try lots of different approaches to different briefs and a way of working will develop in time. This is something which really resonated with me as it is exactly how I was planning to work. I was finding everyone talking about their personal styles quite intimidating and it was making me feel at a disadvantage.  

Level 5 and 6 Summer Sketchbook Mega Crit

Today we had a Mega Crit with levels 5 and 6. I was really surprised by the high level of work, which personally inspired me rather than intimidating me. When I arrived on the course I was worried about the fact that my work seemed so different from the work of other course mates in addition to the fact that I struggle to draw from my imagination. However, seeing the vast diversity of the different work has really reassured me that this is a course, which allows you to work however you want and I'm not at a disadvantage because I do things differently.

Of all the summer sketchbooks I saw, this was definitely my favourite page. I love the fact that it is so detailed yet so simple refined and not at all over worked. The artist has also added such a strong sense of character to it. I wonder how the artist caught the people in so much detail. This seems too difficult to do from direct observation, unless they drew the scene roughly in pencil before refining it in pen. Or did they just draw directly from a photograph? I also love the use of materials and particularly how the simple strokes of gouache wash out the pen, giving it a softness. I also love the fact that they have only used black for the line drawing, then a softer colour for tone. I think that this is something which works really well and that I would like to bring into my own sketching. I have a really bad habit of getting carried away and starting to shade before I have even laid down the bare bones of my image. This is a really good way of overworking and wrecking a piece.

This is another bit of work which I liked and I think that the fact that it was very far from my own work perhaps made me appreciate it more. I spent at least 10 minutes slowly flicking through this sketchbook admiring every page. I just love the dreamy magical feel of this whole body of work, which I think is down to the creative use of media. I can't work out exactly how the student crated it. I am assuming that they used quink and some kind of resist, maybe masking fluid? But then I still can't work out how they managed to get the ink to separate so well, unless they used lots of separate inks. It is so simple yet effective and it makes me want to go away and play around with ink.