statement of intent

This year I plan to look at imagination. I feel that imagination has been lost by a lot of people, particularly children. Kids don’t really play together and dream up games to entertain themselves anymore, they have everything handed to them on a plate. I want to encourage children to imagine. Keeping everything quite basic and giving them room to explore their imagination. Graphics, for example in computer games, are becoming too perfect, and too real, making children confuse fiction and reality, and not giving them a chance to explore their own thoughts and ideas.
My work always includes some sense of reality, whether it is photography or scanned fabric or creating cut outs to then photograph. But there is always something physically there, and I add and combine my illustration with this. I think my style would work well with these ideas. I am quite self determined and passionate once I get involved in my work, but I do like to set myself a brief to work from so I don’t go too off track.
Previously I have created work aimed at young children to young adults, and I feel I can communicate well to people in this age range. However I do not feel my work appeals to older generations. My work can communicate both subtly and obviously, but generally it is somewhere in between, getting across what I want to say without being uninterestingly obvious. I like to intrigue the viewer and make people look twice.
In the past year I have created work combining photography with drawn illustration, which I liked, but do not think it was as strong as the pieces created which were based more on the computer illustration. Aside from Uni I also created some basic graphic design for weddings and funerals, creating table plans, place cards and memorial booklets. This was good experience but I am definitely more driven towards my more personal approach to illustration within graphic design.
I am inspired by everything around me, as well as a variety of designers, illustrators and animators. However, I do not think animation is the path I want to take at this point. I really love the work of Lauren Child, Dr Lakra and Sara Fanelli, and can see links between their work and my own. Colour is also very important to me.