Illustrated aphorisms.
Zine suites are collections of poetic fragments that resonate on a similar frequency. Combined and illustrated they add a new dimension to a previously purely textual work.
They’ve also given me the opportunity to experiment with digital art, and visual art more broadly. Visualising themes, concepts and characters has been a delightful challenge, alongside learning how to work with new tools and techniques.
a creeping sinister
Colour & Space is a suite of eight fragments that collected together because of a suggestive sinister. Noticed possibilities that defy the nice, clean world we like to pretend we live in.
These were the first poems I attempted to put to page visually as well as textually, and although I can’t remember the exact inspiration for it, it’s opened up a whole new world of possibilities.
slipping boundaries
The Body & the Wild is an exploration of the sub-rational, the instinctual, the organic body. A kind of pure existence un-fussed by social mores and higher cognition.
I worked on this with a fairly strict vision, in terms of the colour palette. Partially in the hopes of a sense of cohesion in the final collection but also so that I could focus my energy on the illustrative elements.
the world upside down
Our fanciful dreamings about the days of the dead, they are our mirrored lives, a reflection we persistently maintain. All distortions remain untenably connected to the original.
This suite came together out of a kind of magnetic vibration, they seemed to fit together but the full pattern didn’t show itself until the end, under another’s eyes.
When we shatter, what happens to the pieces?
We are a cohesive whole, sub-units working in perfect harmony. But we are also perilously fragile, and so eventually we must face a more fragmented reality.
This is a four piece suite, initially pencil sketches that I then digitally re-lined. An experiment in both physical and digital art, and the way texture is conveyed in a controlled setting.
Peering past the veneer, what lies beneath?
An existence of overlapping shells, some fully opaque, some transparent, some further still – translucent. Looking beneath, and there are whole new worlds defined in the same interwoven clusters.
Reveal is a triad of block colour illustrations that back three micropoems. The resonate along the lines of layered perception and presentation. What it takes to pierce through, and what it costs.
Soft things
The warm and fuzzy, sweet and simple things.
A set of eight letterings of poetic fragments, about things I like that are uncomplicated, soothing, and sweet.
The world and I
Times and places I’ve enjoyed that have struck a chord worth capturing.
A trio of landscapes in digital watercolour, the beginnings of my foray into a more ‘painted’ style of digital art.
Things hidden
Peering through cracks and crevices, pulling back to consider the form at large, the lines are the linkage between small and large.
A quintet of pencil sketches and accompanying lettering plates, rendered with a mock-neon digital overlay. This was a lot of fun, to both be working in an almost entirely analogue form and be leveraging my digital capabilities in a new way.
Alexei Vimpani 