I Make Mistakes


"I Make Mistakes", ink and digital 2013-2014

Illustration for "I Make Mistakes" by Tanja Šljivar, Winner of the 2014 Close Approximations contest for emerging translators (Fiction)

In this image I wanted to create the perception of two "worlds", or dimensions in the same image. I believe the text is about looking back to a time long passed and the atmosphere is nostalgic and the structure of the text is also a bit impressionistic. So I added the corridor and the table with the books and wineglass as a symbol for a portal to another time. My advice is though to read the text, my summary can not give this beautiful short story full justice.

Read the short story here

Asymptote

Ink, watercolor, digital, 2013. Cover image for Asymptotes third anniversary issue.
Now it's here! The third anniversary issue of the international online journal Asymptote, with texts by Mustafa Khalifa, Elina Hirvonen, Hideo Furukawa, translations by J.M. Coetzee and Rosmarie Waldrop, interviews with Yoshitomo Nara and Adam Thirlwell, a letter from Darfur, poems by Emilio Villa and Hai Zi and much more! And the texts has been illustrated by me! I'm really happy to finally see the complete journal and the images looks so good together with the text. A big thanks to the editor, Yew Leong Lee!

You can already check out the illustrations on the journals page and I will upload them here on the blog in the following weeks.

Asymptote.com 

The Expedition to the Baobab Tree


































"The Expedition to the Baobab Tree", ink and digital, 2013-2014
Illustration for "The Expedition to the Baobab Tree" byWilma Stockenström, translated by J. M. Coetzee, on Asymptote. This excerpt is from a novel from 1987, that will be re-published in april this year.
From the publisher, Archipelago books: "In J.M.Coetzee’s stunning translation: a powerfully symbolic story in the voice of a slave that explores the depths of imagination, isolation, fear, and love. A slave woman is the only survivor of a failed expedition into the depths of Southern Africa. She shelters in the hollow trunk of a baobab tree where she relives her earlier existence in a state of increasing isolation. We are the sole witnesses to her moving history: her capture as a young child, her life in a harbor city on the eastern coast as servant to various masters, her journey with her last owner and protector, and her life in the baobab tree." 

 Read the full text here

The Labour of Life









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"The Labour of Life" ink and digital, 2013 

illustration for "The Labour of Life" by israeli author Hanoch Levin, translated by Atar Hadari, on Asymptote. A dark, tragic but at the same time humouristic play about the relationship between Marge and Jonah. It was challenging to illustrate this one without having a single human being in the image, but I think this emptiness evoke the mood in text.

Read the play here