Back to Exhibitions
It is not uncommon to find yourself being told that you are ‘away with the fairies’ or “in your own world” when drifting away into your thoughts. Yet perhaps this is the better way for some, being in a world of your own. Why worry about having a mundane real life when you can indulge in your ideal daydreams? You can have any occupation, meet any character, be whoever you want to be. It all sounds perfect, doesn’t it? Until you find it interrupting your day-to-day life, occasionally trapping yourself in a fantasy world that you have conjured, where the lines between fiction and reality begin to blur… this is maladaptive daydreaming. A condition that often stems from the acts of escapism, delving into a world that you have imagined to temporarily avoid your real-life situations.
My degree show will illustrate my interpretation of this through a collection of digitally illustrated book covers, I wanted to subtly bring attention to the topic, which is so often seen as just ‘having your head in the clouds’. I studied the topic, and the ways illustration can guide and influence the act in my extended essay, which spurred me on to make this collection of illustrations. Turning them into these young adult novel covers was an idea that came about when thinking on where I wanted my illustration to lead me in the future, making me realise the love I have for the world of book cover illustration and hoping to see my work on the shelves of a book store one day in the future.
Dissertation – Can We Say That There is a Link Between Illustration and Escapism?
