more on illustration as art

Thanks friendly’s for the great comments (with great passion I might add) on my previous post. I agree completely. The links were great, thank-you! But just to clarify, I didn't feel at all inferior to the "artists" the other night. I would just like to have the ability to open a line of intelligent conversation about illustration in an art language that they would understand, try to increase awareness. (Hence needing to do some research).

I actually feel more in tune with current culture than I feel they are sometimes. I sometimes feel as though they are all bubbled up in the world of art: the lifestyle and the scene, but I believe art should be about the real world, everyday life; a documentation of our slice of lifetime. So I DO absolutely believe that illustration is art, and I spend a great deal of time thinking about how this new movement fits in. I personally think it has something to do with the amount of catastrophic doom we are met with on the front pages of the papers each morning (global climate crisis, war, terrorism, massive natural disasters, etc), the feeling of people power no longer existing, being governed by politicians who have learnt to play the game, rather than taking responsibility for reality...

I think illustrators aren’t just responding to a brief (because in most cases they’re not at the moment, they are creating their own works), they are undergoing exactly the same process as "artists" and responding to what's going on around us. Consciously or not, they are currently taking the aesthetic back to an innocent childlike nature, with idealistic landscapes and Disney like critters (check out all those deer’s and birds), but with a dark twist. Perhaps all to give us some respite, but also get in tune with that childlike emotional state; innocence combined with hope, optimism, surrealism and things not quite making sense. That feeling like we're not yet big enough to have an impact, the state I for one feel everyday because the problems seem too big to fix.

A singular figure, with the proportions of a child, alone in a strange environment. How are they going to get out of this one?

If anyone has seen Pan’s Labyrinth yet, I think it's like that. Living in a world gone wrong, and retreating to a fantasy place that somehow helps us cope.

Anyways, that’s kinda what I’m thinking. Am I off track? What do you think?

(p.s. illo is a very old one, but I dug it up 'cause it kinda suited the ramble)