“Fashion Illustration is Unique. The ideas, practice and concepts that drive this genre of work are not easily defined. Fashion Illustration documents a window in time, presenting trends and fashion through a historical perspective”. These are the words chosen by Bil Donovan, great artist of fashion illustration, to present the exhibition “Fashion illustration: visual poetry” curated by himself.
Thirteen artists will expose their brand new works of art dedicated to fashion from January 20th to February 25th.. The talent and the style of each of them, more than enhance the personal signs traced on the paper, are somehow the most complete way to represent the entire landscape in which fashion expands itself in the present.
The event is hosted in the Hanahou Gallery in New York, a place born in 1999 for the will of CWC International with the purpose to enhance illustration and its interpreters, becoming an actual place to meet and to exchange ideas and create projects.
In front of the works on show, it is quite evident that it's not the geographic or cultural matter that makes the final portrait so heterogeneous, but it is the multi-faced environments in which these illustrators are used to move themselves in.
Illustration by Bil Donovan
The best way to start the account of this story, because it's also a matter of history through images, for those who will see it, is to let the sequence of the works of art dedicated to the states of mind of fashion literally flow, explaining just the reason why.
Illustration by Eveline Tarunadjaja
Understanding which detail, shade, color, cut makes a dress, a collection, an essence or an accessory so unique and immediately recognizable is altogether, a gift and a challenge; intuition and the ability to reach the essence: finding in fact a state of mind.
Fashion illustration is therefore, and moreover something untouchable. A well done illustration leads with itself that allure that is impossible to explain but that in its own solitude it can sustain its own significance and it can give sense to what it represents.
Illustration by Tina Berning
This art jumps into the present as a chamaleon. It can express itself both with the words that brought it to life already in the XVI century, with all its evocative and didactic strength, and with the digital language even if it wants to express something classical. No matter which is its dimension, but this lady has never gone out from the room of fashion, but on the contrary, it could always entertain a conversation with every change fashion has gone through. This exhibition is a continuous conversation, a proof of the vitality of illustration, it is a conjunction of the shades that it is undergoing and also something more. This exhibition is an homage to fashion as it is nowadays and an ideal door that leads to its future. The chamaleon is changing its color; from a definite nouance to another infinite are the possible shades, still.
“In essence, Fashion Illustration is visual poetry” - Bil Donovan.
Illustration by Tobie Giddio
Artists on show
Bil Donovan / Carlos Aponte / Cecilia Carlstedt / Daniel Egneus / Eveline Tarunadjaja / Jeffrey Fulvimari / John Jay Cabuay / Laura Laine / Samantha Hahn / Sara Singh / Stina Persson / Tina Berning / Tobie Giddio
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Links:
Hanahou Gallery: https://www.galleryhanahou.com