Artist Focus: Mamak Razmgir
Illustrator – IRAN
Illustration for children is truly important due to its connection with the attitude and interests of this age group. Convening the meaning to the child’s developing mind on one hand, and making the visual elements interesting for children on another hand are essential.
Mamak Razmgir could have proved her talents and proficiency in illustration for children through her imaginative, colorful, and mysterious artworks. Inspired by the art of Dali, Hieronymus Bosch, and American Illustrators; her art has been formed. Mamak believes in children’s attitude of the world and consider their world as a place where impossible becomes possible. This artist has tried to pass the boundaries of reality and create appropriate illustration for children.
Mamak explains about her style and says: “I have always tried to destroy the boundaries between reality and fantasy to explore new areas with my audience to let them discover a new world which sometime is new to me”
What made you interested in Illustration? What were your very first activities in the field?
I was excited about painting and creating form through drawing lines on paper or on the walls ever since my childhood. I was raised in a house where there have been so many books. I could travel to other worlds while listening to stories and fairy tales. I still remember the enjoyment of copying a children book’s illustration. I was so interested in painting that one could find drawings of cartoon character all over my books and notebooks. As I grew up, I chose to attend art collage for studying graphic. I continued my art studies in the University of Fine Arts in illustration.
I have always enjoyed mysterious and mystic stories. Reading Jules Verne, Alice in Wonderland and science fictions which were about the outer space amazed me. I remember that I wrote a story about a witch and a color changing flower and illustrated it when I was thirteen. My professional career began with illustration of a fiction entitled the Deep Dive for the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, which has been one of the best experiences of my life due to great respond of the audiences to my work. This successful experience motivated me to follow this path.
Tell us about your style and techniques…
Fictions and surreal stories have always been interesting to me, because I can subconsciously see their pictures in my mind. I have always tries to infuse reality and illusion and create a whole new world for the audience in order to let them explore in my work and find the things which I have not been conscious about them. This will help the audience to use his mind and fictionalize which enables him to consider himself as the protagonist. I am more cautious about those works that are intended for a particular audience and age group. I do think of me as the protagonist and experience the story in my mind in order to free my imagination to fly within the context.
I am inspired by natural shapes of my surrounding and play with them by changing their sizes and positions which would eventually open the door of a mysterious world to me. I try my best to treat my audience as my fellow travelers. My focus of attention would be on those parts that would interest my inner child and will surely interest children. I act more freely when I’m not bound by the context. My characters start to emerge by drawing the first line.
Present of infants is evident in your art. What do you feel about it?
My world is a mixture of the inner and the outer world of mine: memories, subconscious, dreams, interests, experiences and humans. I am dealing with children and women in my works. Children are like clean boards, and their attitudes have always interested me. Everything impossible is possible in their world because they are filed with fantasy and imagination and free for believing.
In some of my works children are the protagonists and are roleplaying within my illustrations. I try to cross the borders of reality and enter to the world of stories. Children are the symbol of our childhood and our inner children. In a national festival entitled “family” I tried to illustrate with children’s perspective and fillip the adults through picturing their traumas.
Who are your sources of inspiration and your favorite illustrators?
I am inspired by so many things including books, music, photos, ordinary people, movies, childhood dreams, Tim Burton, Miyazaki’s animations, and so many other things which cannot be limited. I can say that I like surreal style and artworks and they inspire me. I study a lot about surrealism and going toward it more and more day by day both consciously and subconsciously. I love strange, fictitious and obscure environments and concepts of Hieronymus Bosch and Salvador Dali’s art; thrill and dynamism of American illustrators’ art, and Olaf Hajek, Duchamp Kalay and Einar Torkovsky are inspiring for me.
Tell us about your future plans
I am working on a fiction about a kid who escapes form his parents quarrels and starts an imaginary journey to leave on an Iceland in another planet. I will hold an exhibition for displaying these illustrations. I would like to experience writing and illustrate my own stories. Unfortunately, we are not paying enough attention to fictions and science fiction in Iran, while we should not neglect these genres’ audience. I am also busy working on a collection which has not any title yet.
More About Mamak Razmgir at: Linkedin