illustrator profile: super gympie

These days, when creating a shoot or article, illustrators beg the same importance as journalists or photographers. Enter Super Gympie  – a London based design duo who are causing a stir in the world of cut and paste illustration…

Super Gympie. The name alone conjures up strange thoughts.  Are these artists are bumper-sized perverts? Alas, Laura Quick and Anna Magnowska are fresh-faced girls that create quirky illustrations. Both in their late twenties they have already seen commissions from Oxfam, The Observer, The Guardian and Hint Magazine to name a few – their popularity is growing fast.

All these publications – from broadsheets to trade mags – realise it’s hard to hook the dwindling attention of the masses – are you still with me?  A savvy illustration gives the most vacuous of text kudos, and tells a parallel story to the words it accompanies, or the photographs it merges with.

To illustrate their illustrations, I asked Super Gympie to sketch images of each other (see below). Seeing the duo’s work separately shows the building blocks of their approach – the girls take it in turns to place their ideas on whatever canvas they decide upon – layer after layer of visual data sandwiched together to creates a bevy of mini narratives.

Even peering at their online portfolio, a plethora of textures almost touch your face; rough surface of cardboard against smooth spray can art, deep pencil grooves press into paper – light ink lines flow and form flowers. And yet, every piece looks unfinished – but that is Super Gympie’s appeal. That and the obvious humour their art giggles at you.

The duo’s stencilling technique is vaguely reminiscent of Banksy, although the cut and paste technique Super Gympie use, makes their work more modern than the known graffiti artist. How soon I wonder till Super Gympie start their own manifestos? For now, Super Gympie are just the superlative of their league.

Other related links:
http://www.supergympie.com

http://www.societyillustrators.org

http://www.signumtech.com
http://www.contact-uk.com
http://www.contactacreative.com

http://www.banksy.co.uk