World Illustration Awards 2019
Earlier this month members of The SAA were delighted to join friends, colleagues and remarkable talent for the prestigious World Illustration Awards 2019.
Returning to Somerset House, the event was a private view of the wonderful and varied shortlisted works, followed by the awards ceremony which was a chance for us all to celebrate the success of some of the world's most exciting illustrators, both professional and new rising talent.
Alice Ball of Illustration Ltd who was part of the judging panel for the SAA prize tells us bit about the evening:
"It was such a fun evening and as always beautifully curated. It was so great to chat to the winner of the NT category 'Paperface' having been on the SAA judging panel for this section of the awards. She was so lovely and surprised to have been picked and during our chat told me about how she was now throwing herself into illustration after a stint in graphic design, I could feel her enthusiasm shine and felt confident that we'd made the right choice.
The standard of work throughout was consistently very good and I felt that with so much talent out there the competition is as high as it's ever been for illustrators finding professional work and trying to stand out, it's exciting to see artists find new ways to get noticed and hold attention."
Amongst the celebrated artwork was Handsome Frank's Leonie Bos and Lesley Barnes who were shortlisted in the Editorial category, Illustration Ltd's Sija Hong who was shortlisted in the Book Category and notably Fiona Woodcock of The Bright Agency who won the Children's Book Category for her children's book LOOK. A number of Debut Art artists took home awards, a massive congratulations to @haxloeffler , @helenfriel , @andrewtarcher and to @squareeyescomic (Anna Mill) who took home the Overall Professional award for her amazing graphic novel, Square Eye.
The night was a huge success with the room applauding the accomplishments of all the illustrators who had taken the time to create artwork for The WIA, note-worthy amongst the awards were the Overall Winners -
Anna Mill (professional) whose work really stood out to us with its bold, digital layering depicting a near-future city in the style of a graphic novel and Patrick Dias (new talent), whose experimental submission, combined illustration, set making, stop motion and 2d animation which was a real talking point in the room.
The World Illustration Awards exhibition will run throughout July at Somerset House and is free to visit.
