Quest lecture: Carolyn Gowdy

Today we had a quest lecture from artist/illustrator Carolyn Gowdy. I had no idea Carolyn was American until she started to speak and I was happy to have a whole lecture to listen to an American accent. Carolyn was born and raised in Seattle but has lived in England for the past 30 years or so.
It was really interesting listening to her story of how she came over to England and her first few years starting out as an artist.
Her work has been around for a long time and has influenced many other people. Her work features a lot of feminist ideas and she talked about creating a lot of series of works and how imagery reappears in her work.

Her work seemed quite conceptual and she spoke about communication of her work and how she tries to express ideas and transform in a way that's clear and accessible.

These are life portraits from a day at a fair, where Gowdy invited people to be drawn. The portraits were called poem people portraits. I think here you can see her rougher work, and how her style continues into printmaking and more developed pieces. 

Gowdys messages can be seen through the use of text in her work. I think her messages come across clearly this way, and she is successful in what she said about accessibility.  

Although Gowdy's style isn't really linked to the way I work or what messages I would want to give across I like her use of colour; subtle and muted but warm. I think colour can go a long way in creating mood and atmosphere in an image and that it something I can work with.