| Luke Best is a British illustrator, animator, art director, t-shirt designer and spacesuit architect. His illustrations are like an artistic savant’s third grade school project. Using tiny scarps of colored paper cut-outs, the work goes beyond the realm of the two-dimensional without trying to approach a sense of realism. The hodge-podge of materials, overlapping lines, and bursting pastel colors create a multi-layered, optically fascinating effect. At least conceptually, it’s not that far off from Paper Mario.
There is a definite sense of nostalgia in Best’s work, and not just in a way that makes you wish you had spent more time on your History class art projects (did anyone else out there have to make paper doll pilgrims in elementary school?). The illustrations recall perspective-defying medieval paintings, early African-American folk art, impersonal 1980’s corporate abstraction, and the introspective scribbles of mentally challenged artists. |
