Urban Landscapes Merge with Intricately Rendered Figures in Ed Fairburn’s Portraits on Vintage Maps — Colossal
Art
History
#drawing
#Ed Fairburn
#geography
#maps
#portraits
December 7, 2022
Kate Mothes
“Plymouth.” All photographs © Ed Fairburn, shared with authorization
Alongside the contours of roads, property boundaries, and shorelines, English artist Ed Fairburn attracts inspiration for his in-depth cross-hatched portraits. As an avid map collector, he is fascinated by the city landscape and cartographic style and design. “The far more maps I gather, the extra I want to produce,” he tells Colossal, sharing that transportation routes like streets and bridges can be likened to the veins or arteries of the body.
Fairburn’s intricate drawings instantly answer to the format of the initial map. “I let the composition of each individual map to inform the composition of each and every portrait,” he describes. An interest in the physique as metaphorical landscape and vice versa also informs how he ways each and every piece. “In a wider feeling, I hope that my work pushes viewers to consider about all those similarities, and perhaps delivers a reminder that we’re formed by the landscape close to us, which we in transform are also shaping.”
You can come across much more of Fairburn’s operate on his web site, and follow updates on Instagram, exactly where he usually shares videos of his method.
“River Thames Staines to Richmond”
“Singapore”
“Aberdeen Harbour”
“Paris II”
“Paris”
Detail of “Plymouth”
Detail of “River Thames Staines to Richmond”
#drawing
#Ed Fairburn
#geography
#maps
#portraits
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