GRAPHIC LANGUAGE
LAURA MESTRE & KATHARINA KRAN
Since childhood, Laura Mestre has been a keen illustrator, though always as a hobby drawing pencil portraits of friends and family. It wasn’t until adulthood that Laura made the decision to pursue her craft professionally, switching from a journalism degree to graphic design at Bau University in Barcelona, though this transition wasn’t all smooth sailing. “I took a year out when I finished because I didn’t know where my place as a graphic designer was,” she explained. It wasn’t until she moved to Bilbao and started tattooing her designs that her focus on illustration really picked up. “I took a MA in Illustration and comics at Elisava University. It was here where I met a lot of people who inspired and helped me, and I started to develop my own illustrative style.”
The influence of her graphic design background is obvious, with a digital, post-modern style that draws from early internet aesthetics. “I’m into composition, grids, typography and gradients,” she told Cluster, “sometimes I like to draw analogue, but digital programmes just suit my style.” Her piece ‘Leo’, selected by Cluster, is a perfect example of this; reminiscent of early 2000s web design, it features a digital layering of symbols and flat images. Flowers and beating hearts are seemingly ‘copy and pasted’ next to one another, evoking nostalgia for a simpler past. “I always try to connect with the viewer in an emotional way,” she added, “I try to turn bad feelings into something beautiful.”
When illustrating, Laura first sets an intention for her composition. She then makes a draft using a handful of core narrative elements and decides on a colour scheme, collecting references from other artists along the way. “I’m always interested in new experiences,” she told us, “and Cluster is doing great work building an entire community of artists - I love that!” Currently, Laura is working on an NFT project called Crypto Art Dealers, though that’s not all, she’s also preparing a clothing collection with a local fashion designer due for release in 2022.
Similarly, the path to illustration was a meandering one for Katharina Kran, who studied painting, animation and tapestry before she found her place as an illustrator. She acquired digital programmes while working an uninspiring graphic design job, and found herself experimenting with these technologies on the side. “I always had sympathy for the unpretentious, for punk, underground comics, art brut and street art, and wanted to continue in this direction,” she explained, “when I started working digitally, my style changed a lot.” The excess of possibilities she found in the digital realm, as well as online exposure to other artists all contributed to this shift, allowing her to become more in touch with her own visual sensibility.
Her bright, and often humorous, work is full of clean edges, grids, geometric shapes and bright but limited colour palettes. The way Katharina toys with shape and proportion lends her illustrations an absurd edge that is at once amusing and unnerving. Her piece, ‘Walking the dog’, features a man with impossibly long, angular limbs, outsized hands and a tiny, bird-like head, while the dog he is walking possesses a peculiarly human face, complete with frown lines. “With the graphic style, drama is kept at a distance. That can create good tension, so I can explore dark themes more easily and add something abysmal to the light themes. Humour helps a lot in this context.”
Her creative process is fuelled by an object archive - a collection of simple line drawings referencing everything from plants, flames, teacups, weapons, chairs, cars and characters, “It’s like my alphabet,” she added, “though one that’s constantly in development.” After mining these references for inspiration, she experiments with paper collages and sketches before finessing her images digitally. Like many of us, the outbreak of Covid-19 left Katharina feeling isolated from any creative community, “now, however, I feel very taken care of,” she told us, “everyone from the Cluster team is so nice and the exchange with other illustrators has been very inspiring.” She’s recently completed a piece for the 35th issue of Soyoung magazine, released next year.
While Laura Mestre uses her graphic sensibility to tap into the nostalgic romance of the near past, Katharina’s graphic style demonstrates a trenchant ability to simultaneously evoke unease and humor. Despite their stylistic differences, these cross-disciplinary artists remind us that the path to authenticity is rarely smooth, but the skills you pick up along the way can be defining.
Work by both Laura Mestre and Katharina Kran can be viewed on the Cluster Illustration platform
and purchased through our Cluster Illustration Online Shop.
Thank you for reading,
Stephanie Gavan & Cluster Team.