Lockdown Graphics

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During lockdown I created 3 short graphic books under the collective name of Lockdown Graphics. As a cross over between zine, comic strip and poetic illustration, each book sits in a select position of popular zeitgeist current affairs and everyday humanity. They are gentle, obliquely humorous and very topical.

Published by Yew Tree Press of Stroud, Lockdown Graphics are about being alive and ‘normal’. They are about feeling feelings, and that being ok. The simple easy graphics and minimal text directs them to all readers open to illustration as a means in itself for suggestion and simple story telling.

These short books represent a snapshot of the lockdown mindset for many everyday people. They are intended to reflect the mundanity, monotony and seeming absurdity of staying at home and doing very little in our usual busy, task driven world. They are an ordinary yet poignant illustration of isolation and how it is getting to us third time around.

The chosen illustration style for these books is direct and largely unedited. A poetic stream of consciousness.

 A bit SHIT  makes a story out of nothing. A conversation between familiars, with nothing new to share and nothing new to report. Its humour is charming and the text a gentle reaction to the current lockdown rules of extreme locality. Two souls forced to find comfort in platitude.

Is this far ENOUGH? Plots the cumbersome manoeuvres of ‘correct’ social distancing. A snatched conversation that is way more about logistics than content, the narrative plays on an innate and awkward desire to ‘do the right thing’ and in doing so, systematically undermines the notion of spontaneous interaction.

RUBBISH is a truism, a love poem and a wide-eyed double take on what it means to social distance from a loved one. Autobiographical, this book underlines the simple but seemingly absurd infringement on our social liberty to physically love somebody outside our social bubble. Rudimentary guidelines are poignantly spelt out in few words and simple graphics. Seemingly so easy to abide by, in practice each and every one becomes a gargantuan challenge with every ‘normal’ day.

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