#simon vaeth

This is a graphic novel to the George Orwell classic 'Animal Farm'. It is the graduation project from Danish artist Simon Vaeth, who has been featured on the blog earlier with his zine 'The Very Rough Guide'. This self published book dates back to 2010 already, and also gives a nice time capsule of Simon's style at this point in time. I can see that in the last few years, Simon works more with an analogue and traditional approach and meanwhile found more and more of his personal style.

The complete book is in black and white, and features about a 100 pages, printed in an edition of 100 pieces. It being a graphic novel, there is no text to the book. I guess if you haven't read animal farm, it doesn't do a lot for you. I have read it a long time ago, and even though i don't remember all that much about it anymore, you can tell that Simon captured the essence of the storyline in his illustrations.

I picked up this book at a small store in Aarhus, called Hojkant. I didn't know Simon yet at this point but his work grabbed my attention right away and i got in touch with him. A little while later i invited him to make an artwork for the first issue of EIGHT magazine. I guess Simon is one of the first Danish artists i was working with. I'm glad that we are still working together on various projects and exhibitions. I've been really impressed by his work lately.

Last night i opened an exhibition in Copenhagen, together with artists Simon Væth (DK) and Max Grünfeld (NL). For the occasion of the exhibition we produced this zine. A5 size, 24 pages in total, in an edition of 50, featuring illustrations from both artists. Because we only had two days to create the zine, we made some ground rules. Each drawing was only allowed to take 30 minutes. All drawings are in black and white and one supporting color (pre determined along with the words).

For the zine we decided that it would be fun and interesting to illustrate the differences and similarities between the Dutch and Danish cultures. Every day situations,  deep rooted traditions and the mindset of people. We picked nine words in total, and both artists responded to this word with one drawing, capturing the essence of their own country/culture. As the zine states; ‘All of these drawings are the absolute truth, no exceptions’.

We got everything printed a few hours before the exhibition, and were all was really pleased with the result, which exceeded all our expectations. The concept and the rules of the zine, created a really clear framework. The interaction between the Danish side on each left page, and the Dutch side on each right page is simply amazing, and really illustrates the differences between the two cultures. Something that i am experiencing first hand every day, as a Dutch man living in Copenhagen.

The zine is still for sale, for 40DKK or 5EUR. Please contact me for more details. ([email protected]) Shipping is of course possible, and not included in the price yet.