Varoom 34 – the Well, Well, Well issue
illustration, culture, society
Autumn 2016
Cover image by Patrik Svensson
Purchase here
Self-confidence, the complexities of the human body, anxiety, relationships with pets and a monastic retreat: looking at health and wellbeing through personal experience and historical imagery, the Well, Well, Well issue of Varoom explores how illustrators visualise for their clients and deal with real world issues around the subject.
With a History of Looking at Health from the Wellcome Library, a profile of Illustrator Gemma Correll and her work, 10 Approaches to Health and Wellbeing featuring Moth Collective and Charlotte Day, a graphic novel by Deborah Levy and Andrzej Klimowski on memory and psychology, and a feature on Illustrators and how their pets impact their work – Varoom 34 lives up to it’s theme of Health and Wellbeing.
Featured in this issue:
The Sustainability of the Illustrator
The demands of working by yourself, of delivering creativity on tap, of dealing with troublesome clients, of paying the bills, can be emotionally and psychologically difficult. We asked illustrators Lee John Philips, Peter Quinnell, Anna Steinberg and Jane Craddock Watson, to reflect on their own personal experience and what strategies have they developed to sustain the practice of the illustrator.
A History of Looking at Health
Our experience and ideas of health, illness and our body is partly shaped by visual technologies and the kind of medical knowledge and social conversations they enable. Catherine Draycott, Head of Images at The Wellcome Library, a major resource for the study of medical history, introduces a survey of some key moments in the illustration of health and illness.
Profile: Gemma Correll
Like a Tina Fey of illustration, Gemma Correll makes laugh-out-loud images about anxiety, neuroses and the body. Correll chats with John O’Reilly, about pugs, the dangers of overthinking and exposing yourself in your work.
The Pet Effect: Illustrators and Their Pets
What’s the connection between pet and illustrator owner? Does it influence the artwork and working life itself? Varoom asks 7 illustrators about their dogs, cats, rabbits….
10 Visual Approaches
Framing the visual language of health and wellness can be tricky. Get it wrong and you’re doing the equivalent of ‘woman laughing alone with salad’. Sharon Bowes looks at work by illustrators who get it right and extracts some nutritious advice.
Unexpected Journey
Tackling the themes of psychology, memories and childhood trauma, Martin Colyer discusses Deborah Levy’s new graphic novel Stardust Nation with it’s illustrator, Andrzej Klimowski.
Also in this Issue:
An interview with Illustrator Andrew Baker on his work for the book Body: A Graphic Guide to Us, a feature of illustrator Nathalie Lees and her editorial work on body representation and pharmesueicules manufacture, an interview with Una about her comic On Sanity, and much more.
Varoom 34 is available from good book stores and the AOI Shop. 64 pages of great images and insightful comment.