ISSUE 12 | JUNE 2018
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Clearly born to collage, surprisingly, Alice has only been illustrating full-time for just over a year. Before that she supported herself by working part-time and smashing out collage commissions for anyone who wanted them. Since signing with The Jacky Winter Agency in October 2017 though (which has bases in Melbourne and New York – a pretty big deal in itself), Alice has worked with Quarto Publishing, Little Hare Books, Hardie Grant,
T2, Bravery Magazine, American Public Media, and ABC Radio National. Plus, her ‘leafy collage’ design was recently blown up for ECO D in Hawthorn and is now plastered over their walls and windows nationwide, something which she got a huge buzz from. It’s finishing her first picture book ‘A Stage Full of Shakespeare’ that’s been her biggest achievement though – a funny, olde-worlde plethora of
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Shakespearian characters and stories. “Finishing the book was a really huge achievement for me. It was my first picture book and it was an honour to be asked to illustrate iconic scenes from some of Shakespeare’s bestknown plays. “It was also a lot of illustrations! The book will be published in September so I’m really excited to see it out in the world!”
Alice’s work can flit from intricately delicate to simple and linear – her repeating pastoral patterns for a wallpaper design appear bold and neat, yet her illustrations and collages that include more characters, action scenes, and landscapes, express a fine tuning and the ability to retain a steady hand amidst a busy backdrop. All this culminates in a portfolio of work that conveys to admirers and consumers that collage, like a lot of art, isn’t just one dimensional.
But how does she do it? For many illustrators, a blank canvas would be the obvious first choice, but for Alice, she begins by painting a hell of a lot of paper. “I try and create different textures and a diverse range of patterns, tones and hues. “I work surrounded by paper – I have piles of paper everywhere! I have a pile for green, yellow, red, and so forth, and I’ll pull out a sheet of paper as I go.
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“Next, I plan the collage by sketching it out, either on paper or on an iPad. When I’m happy with the sketch I translate it into collage, tracing each shape and then cutting out the corresponding shape onto a coloured sheet of paper.” If all that sounds like a huge task, then believe her when she says it really is!
Pink Bits W R I T T E N B Y C H A R L OT T E G O O D S I R @PINK_BITS
Getting naked makes me nervous. Coming from a very conservative family, a bikini wax at a the beauty salon would make my mother flinch in nervousness, not at the pain, that i would actually learn is similar to the worst pain you’ve ever felt but hotter; but at the thought of being (whisper) naked (whispering lower than humanly possible, eyes darting down to the lower half of your torso) down there. So naturally I felt the same. Growing up I never had a sister to reassure me that yeah hair does grow there, or contrary to popular belief those stretch marks around your hips are totally normal. Moving into my teens years, thanks to Rookie Mag, access to the internet and MTV music videos, my pseudo-amish views vanished. I still harboured some nervousness when it I had to put on my swimsuit at
swimming carnivals, and stretching my way out of skinny jeans on too-drunk Tinder dates, but nowadays, unlike the early 90’s, there are a plethora of blogs, videos and even TV series (shout out to Netflix’s Big Mouth) that let you know these things, without consulting the not-tohelpful sealed section of Dolly Doctor. One of these kick-ass influencers changing up the way we see ourselves is Christine Yahya. Christine is a Sydney based artist and cool bird lady who is here to freshen up your feeds, and be a general legend of a human being, creating inclusive, body positive art that celebrates women in all their glory, illustrating the bits and shapes we’re told to hide.
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Her Copic marker art may seem cute and fluffy with it’s pastel pink hues and soft curves, but look deeper and you’ll see it represents a diverse group of women, as well as highlighting and celebrating those who probably don’t feature your typical Insta feed. “Some days, we’re more comfortable with our strippeddown selves than others. Really, the best way for many women to describe their relationship with their body: “It’s complicated.” says Yahya (please say it one more time for the people at the back- we feel ya sister!). However, @Pink_Bits 52.2k strong following didn’t happen overnight. Christine has been drawing for a long time. She recalls one of the first things she remembers drawing as a fluffy duck or pikachu (shout out 90’s kids), but as she grew older she realised there was a large group of society that weren’t shown unless they were a token best friend on Disney channel. Her first illustration for Pink Bits, wasn’t created to share online, but as it came into existence they slowly demanded their own space and huzzah Pink Bits was born through a tiny lady drawn with a pink, bootleg copic
marker; modeled off Yahya’s own naked reference photos. “I wanted to see my own shapes represented on paper. [..] I’ve had a long and complicated relationship with my body, and had had enough. As more and more people liked, shared and commented on my art in support, it felt really special [... and that feeling] is so powerful and uniting in a world where not everyone is represented in online space, print and especially in our media. ” Inspired by Matt Fraction, Chip Zdarsky, Rupi Kaur and Archer Magazine, Pink Bits is both similar in it’s message, yet so radically different in it’s execution. Christine’s artwork has morphed in it’s short time to be more inclusive of women, including women of colour, women with disabilities or illnesses, predominantly those that struggle with equal representation of in the media. To find inspiration in this she has a range of connections, she asks her followers, she finds little things and people that inspire her in pop culture, as well as observations and personal experiences.
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I M A G E S S U P P L I E D B Y A RT I S T ’ S P R
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Amy Shark WRIT TEN BY ALEX DYSON @AMYSHARKMUSIC
Amy Billings asked the Uber driver to pull over early. They were still 100m metres from her destination, but that was the point. She didn’t want to look like a goose clambering out of the back seat of the Prius in front of her date. Except it wasn’t 100m it was more like 100 yards because this was in America after all. And it wasn’t Amy Billings it w as Amy Shark because that’s the stage name Amy had decided on when she uploaded a song to the Internet called Adore. And it wasn’t a “date” as such, but actually a coffee catch up with Mark Hoppus from Blink 182 who had somehow seen Amy’s stuff and liked it enough to prompt him sent her a message on Twitter and invite her to catch up…and she just happened to be in Los Angeles that week… and now she found herself walking along the footpath looking in the reflection of shop-front windows adjusting her hair because she was almost there, and didn’t want to look like a weirdo in front of a guy she had literally grown up idolising, who now, incredibly, wanted to meet HER because of HER music... and *sigh* what even is life? “It’s probably the first time I actually felt myself choking up.” Amy relates to me down the phone from Nashville, Tennessee, where she’s just checked into her hotel. “What are you doing in Nashville?” “Ummm….” Amy goes on to explain that after meeting Chris Carraba, another childhood musical hero (this time from the band Dashboard Confe ssional) in Winnepeg earlier this year, they kept in touch and then he started playing her track Adore at his shows.
“What, like as the house music as people are walking in?” I ask. “Nah, like, doing a cover of it on stage…” We both laugh. Things are crazy for Amy these days. After chucking Adore up on triple j unearthed only 2 years ago it’s gone on to get #2 in that years Hottest 100, garner 37 million streams (and counting), and see her named as one of Apple Music’s NEXT GENERATION artists which among other cool things gave her and the residents of LA a massive billboard of her face right on Hollywood Boulevard. Like , I saw it and it was huge. Amy was equally blown away, particularly because a bit of Yule-tide scheduling made sure America got to see even more than anticipated… “I went there, and it was such a nice moment, I was with my managers and we went there and looked at it and was like aw that’s crazy man, that’s so cool, then we had Christmas and came back to the states and I thought it would be gone, but randomly because it was the holidays or whatever, they left it, so I was up there for aaaaages.” These crazy instances have begun being par for the course for the endearingly self-depreciating Ms Shark, but have all been leading up to quite a momentous milestone; a highly anticipated debut album. July 2018 sees the release of Love Monster, Amy Shark’s sprawling collection of tunes that - as well as including some songs that Gold Coast locals who attended random live music nights at pubs might know - was also written with some of the world’s biggest names in songwriting.
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Which brings us back to the INITIAL ridiculous encounter with a childhood hero… After having a terrible American coffee but a wonderful musical conversation with Mark from Blink, Amy returned to the hotel and relayed what happened the full day to her crew. “We were just having a beer, and I was just telling them how it went, and what he smelt like. (Roses and handsome stuff apparently) and they said, “you know, you’ve actually got a few days free if you wanted to set up a session or something?” So I like, got up the courage and texted him and immediately saw the three dots appear and I was like ‘HE’S COMING BACK’!” Those three dots morphed into a message, and that message morphed into a 2-day writing session with one of the most famous Pop Punk musicians in history. Amy was nervous, and like almost everyone on the planet at one time or another, had one of those stare-at-the-ceiling-inthe-dark kinda nights. “I really struggled to sleep the night before. I’m like, what if I’m no good? Or what if it sucks? The label were really good, and they say “don’t worry, it’s ok if nothing comes of it”, but really, deep down I know we all want something to come of it...”
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