Jane Ray Hans Christan Andersen Awards 2018 UK Illustrator Nominaton
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Jane Ray Hans Christan Andersen Awards 2018 UK Illustrator Nominaton To enable a child to see themselves in a book, to see an aspect of their story being told, is a powerful and liberatng gif. And to get those children writng and illustratng, becoming the authors and illustrators of tomorrow, is the way forward. 1 Jane Ray Biography Jane was born and brought up in London, in the 2005 opening of Seven Stories, The Centre a home where her interest in art and music for the Children’s Book, in Newcastle. One of her was encouraged. She studied art and design at illustratons is featured on the building sign over Middlesex University. She specialised in ceramics the entrance of the Centre and has been used in for her degree course, but she had always wanted its publicity and merchandise. She is interested to be a book illustrator: “I started making litle in contemporary issues around illustraton for books when I was about fve years old and young people: about the future of the picture completely fell in love with the simple process of book, commercially and as an art form; and about folding sheets of paper in half into a simple book, how illustraton refects diversity in society. She and then being able to tell a story with a beginning, believes passionately that illustraton should not be middle and end.” confned to books for younger children. Afer graduaton, she began her career by Jane served on the children’s writers and illustratng greetng cards and book jackets. illustrators commitee of the UK Society of Authors A Balloon for Grandad, writen by Nigel Gray and from 2004-2007. She worked with In the Picture, a published in 1989, was her frst colour picture project in partnership with SCOPE, a Britsh book. Since then she has illustrated over sixty disability charity, which promoted the inclusive books for children. At frst, she was partcularly representaton of children with disability in atracted by folk tales, myths, legends and Bible children’s picture books and fcton. The project stories. The Story of Creaton, with words that produced an image bank to help illustrators be were adapted from the Bible, won a Smartes more inclusive in their work. She contnues this Award in 1992. She has illustrated two books interest, working with a new project, Inclusive with adult texts for the prestgious Folio Society, Minds (www.inclusiveminds.com). Myths and Legends of the Near East (2003) and Celtc Myths and Legends (2006) and has She enjoys working directly with children and illustrated original picture book texts from the adults, either in schools or at book festvals. award-winning novelist Jeanete Winterson, and Working with the author Joyce Dunbar, and the UK Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Dufy. Beginning with school children who were deaf or hard of in 2002 with Can You Catch a Mermaid, she has hearing, she illustrated the fairy tale of a deaf writen and illustrated several of her own stories prince who was taught to use his hands and eyes as picture books. to communicate by a mysterious bird. This was From the tme of her student visits to the Britsh published as Moonbird in 2007. It was adapted Museum, Jane has drawn inspiraton from the art for the theatre in 2008, with Jane’s illustratons and architecture of other tmes and places. Her providing the inspiraton for the design and illustraton of the traditonal song The Twelve costumes. Her illustratons for The Lost Happy Days of Christmas (2011) was inspired by a visit Endings were used in a theatre producton of that to Bruges. And a notebook in which she recorded book in 2010 . her visit to the Ospedale in Venice was the In 2011, Jane was artst in residence at The Tanglin startng point for both the story and illustratons Trust School, Singapore. In 2014, she worked with of Heartsong (2015), writen with Kevin Crossley the natonal Pop-Up children’s book festval Holland. (www. pop-up.org.uk), creatng three big ‘toy Jane was one of a number of leading illustrators theatres’ in three cites in partnership with staf who were asked to design exhibiton spaces for from The Royal Opera House. 2 Jane has designed murals for a London children’s library and is one of a number of prominent Britsh illustrators and artsts working with The Nightngale Project (www.nightngaleproject.org), a scheme that brightens up the environments in mental health services in London with art and music. From December 2016 – April 2017 an exhibiton of Jane’s work for the project was held at a London health centre, showcasing work that she created specifcally for hospitals, including images that are to be reproduced on the walls in the women’s Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit at St Charles Hospital. Recently, Jane and writer Sita Brahmachari have run an art and writng workshop at a centre for refugees and migrants. “People come to the centre principally to learn English, from all sorts of backgrounds. They are ofen feeing unimaginable circumstances and living very difcult lives here in the UK. In amongst all the chaos and stress of applying for asylum, fnding safe places to live, accessing healthcare and learning the language, I try to create a litle oasis of calm and colour.” Here is Jane’s advice to aspiring authors and illustrators: “To enable a child to see themselves in a book, to see an aspect of their story being told, is a powerful and liberatng gif. And to get those children writng and illustratng, becoming the authors and illustrators of tomorrow, is the way forward.” 3 Jane Ray An Appreciaton “Seize diversity and embrace it for In Fairy Tales, retold by Berlie Doherty, Jane challenges the faxen-haired European stereotypes, the rich gif it is…” Jane Ray having a black prince in Cinderella; a black Beauty Jane Ray is a highly regarded illustrator both in in Beauty and the Beast; and an Asian princess the UK and internatonally. Her earliest work in The Frog Prince. These characters are not crossed over between posters, prints, book dependent on conventonal beauty for their virtues, jackets and paintng, but the making of picture steering away from the ofen sanitsed retellings books has become the most important aspect of of Grimm, Perrault and Anderson. Her characters her work. Jane’s visual and emotonal language are layered and ‘other-worldly’, giving the stories borrows from the many hours spent in the Britsh an unfamiliar freshness. She says that “…even as a Museum perusing folk tales, fables and parables young child I recognised how important it was to from around the world. She cites Paul Klee and see myself in a picture book”. Marc Chagall as partcular infuences on her style. Fairy Tales shows her use of sumptuous colour, the Her luminous artwork has a broad and diverse intricacy and richness of her design, and her skill in audience, captvatng both children and adults. The the use and referencing of both traditonal and folk work is compassionate and sensitve, underpinned forms of illustraton – including a skilful use of the by her strong belief in inclusivity derived from her silhouete, where she freely credits the infuence experience of diverse contemporary society: “The of fellow Britsh artst, illustrator and picture book children I meet are ethnically diverse, and I would maker Jan Pienkowski. be embarrassed if my audience wasn’t represented in my books”. Cinderella from Fairy Tales Beauty and the Beast from Fairy Tales 4 Heartsong Themes of cruelty, imprisonment and a yearning for love are present. These are tempered with desires and dreams of another life and the magnifcence of fying to freedom. Enchantng illustratons, flled with exotc eastern detail and rich colour, bind this poignant tale of hope and transcendence to the imaginaton of the reader. Heartsong, a short novel by Kevin Crossley-Holland, based on Vivaldi’s Four The Frog Prince from Fairy Tales Seasons, is a tale of the healing power of music – and shows Jane’s skill in extending the text with her handling of detail, colour, and character in a restricted design space, responding to the mood of Crossley-Holland’s story and the development of its narratve. Jane tells of her extraordinary and moving background research in the Vivaldi Museum in Venice. Here she found a name in the list of foundling babies and began a notebook that became the inspiraton for Crossley-Holland’s story. Jane’s diaphanous watercolours and small washed sepia vignetes match Crossley-Holland’s unusual rhythmic text perfectly – bringing life to a small Venetan orphan who would not have had a voice. This small book refects Jane’s concern for the quality and integrity of an idea. There is both sensitvity and sophistcaton in her observaton and draughtsmanship, the pictures telling a story of hunger and charity in a way that communicates with children in an engaging manner, without moralism, and with wit. Ahmed and the Feather Girl Jane responds to and matches the intensity of In her own story Ahmed and the Feather Girl, she Carol Ann Dufy’s The Lost Happy Endings with steps outside a Eurocentric setng with a mixture pictures of delicacy and ferocity. Accompanying of European, Middle Eastern and South Asian faces a tale as dark and threatening as any by the and clothing styles, and, as in many traditonal fairy Grimm Brothers, her full page tableaux mirror tales, Jane’s mult-layered story is full of humanity sixteen pages of embellished text, each of them – a universal parable dealing with deep emotons. combining the darkness of forest and nightmare 5 The Lost Happy Endings The Seal Wife in The Litle Mermaid and Other Fishy Tales with the contrastng richer colours of fre, fabric more than her previous work, her sensitvity and moonlight.