BIOGRAPHY
Rebecca Turton
“Actually the best gift you could have given her was a lifetime of adventures…”
I like books, in particular fiction, the writings of Emily Bronte, Phillip Pullman to that of J K Rowling. I like postcards, traveller's tales, and films, anything that can capture you and entrap you in a story. My work consists of thoughts, ideas, dreams and stories, whilst engaging with themes of fantasy, fiction and reality. A story allows you to jump head first into another world, no second thoughts, no questions asked. Jonathan Gottschall states, ‘We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories.’
The process of my work is produced in a collage effect. I have an image in my head of what I want to draw, then from this I use various resources such as the internet or photographs to help build up my image. This method can conjure various images and not necessarily a series of one image that follows on to the next. Instead a montage is created of different portals into various worlds.The originality of drawing, allows organic lines to be created, which are natural. Drawing allows me to explore varies ideas and effects for my pieces; it is not only used as a process but as a finalised image. The effect of drawing in context with my ideas gives connotations of illustrations I would find in books as a child. John Tenniel's illustrations in 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland', give a quick glimpse of this alternative world, but have a narrative by their self. I use print in my work to allow experimentation with size, colour and layering. My experimentation with silk-screen printing recently has allowed me to experiment with colour separations which I have further worked into using drawing. This can be seen in 'Draw me like one of your French girls'.
Escapism is key to my work. Each scene illustrated, I hope tells a story, thus allowing the viewer to conjure up their own narrative and get lost in the world created. My work is to be used as starting points for fantasy stories yet unknown. Since childhood everyone has been exposed to the aspect of fantasy. When a child, you live in worlds created through fantasy, whether it be books, films or proverbs. Fantasy can teach you lessons and morals and give you an escape to be whoever and be wherever you want to be. At first glance, the theme of fantasy gives connotations of alternative universes to our own, but through closer inspection, fantasy provides more and more parallel universes. The ‘The Da Vinci Code’ is based within our world but isn’t it really a fantasy? Harry Potter is a world based even within our own and Phillip Pullmans, ‘His Dark Materials’ series explores the ideas of a number of parallel universes and their cross overs. I am experimenting with how we are conditioned to these modes of escapism and why not when living in the real world is not looking so good. At least in the worlds of fantasy, animal’s talk, hallucinogenic skies overwhelm and capture us and the good guys eventually win.