LIZZIE MARY CULLEN

Image from the Lizzie Mary Cullen website

This is 'Trafalgar Square' illustrated by British artist Lizzie Mary Cullen. It is one of mary drawings of the 'London Psychogeographies' series most likely created for exhibition purposes. Cullen, who was born in Scotland has done award-winning illustrations for clients such as the Independent newspaper, BBC and MTV. This, along with other drawings of the series is a depiction of a famous attraction spots in London, this one being of the world famous Trafalgar Square. The reason for analysing this piece is because it will inspire my outcomes of a series of posters, some of which will be illustrated in this style.

According to her official website, Cullen expresses London as "an expressive urban maze whose sensuous, dark and mythical history is echoed throughout the city" and may have been the main source of inspiration for this series.The purpose for creating these psychogeographies was to "combine reality with my (her) own interpretations of space", which explains why the buildings and the surroundings are the way that they are- disproportionate and not quite up to scale. From this, the possible theme may be that of London, or a psychedelic London, as it bears some resemblance to psychedelic hallucinations. She has used a range of repetitve textures throughout the piece to convey some sense of realism, as seen with the road and the pavement.  When using radiographers and fine liners and Unicorn hide paper, she may have achieved this using short and long marks with these, as well as using long and wavy lines for the sky, and a few hints of cross-hatching, which is obviously her style. Had she not used well-known building such as the neon signs of Sanyo, TDK and Fosters, or even provided the title, the illustration would have been difficult for the audience to identify.

When I first saw the illustration, I found it hard to identify the city until I saw the title. When I saw it, I tried to look for buildings that are found in Trafalgar Square and then it made much more sense.

As previously stated, I would like to use her style in some of my philosophical posters for my personal project. She uses repetitive patterns frequently in her work, which I want to use as this technique links back to the CD project, where I used repetitive patterns for the surface designs. In a way, there is some resemblance with Billie Jean's illustrations which are also monochromatic, and have some sense of realism in them but she don't use any repetitive patterns and her illustrations don't quite fill up the page like Cullen's. But in general, I do hold her work in high regard, because of the effort that she puts in each of them.