Rose Blake

Rose Blake is a recent graduate of the Kingston University Illustration course and is now honing her skills at the Royal College of Art.

She works from her base in Dalston, East London but we saw her work at her degree show and a particular print caught our eye; it concerned her phobia of pigeons! “When I was a kid, I had this really bad phobia of pigeons, I’m still quite weird about them now, but I can keep it pretty hidden. I made two screenprints about it when I was in college, that the guys from Nobrow saw in my portfolio. We discussed it, and thought that it would be a nice idea for a Small Press book.”

Rose’s imagery is often drawn from personal experiences, “All the images from the book were pretty much from my head. I came up with the ideas for the pictures from my personal experience as a child. For example, when I was about 12 I went to see a hypnotherapist who tried to cure me by getting me to imagine a pigeon as a character from The Simpsons. It didn’t work.” Rose cites David Byrne as a major influence; “because he has done so many different things, so well.” And clearly Rose’s ability to make such beautiful work from such a humble topic shows she’s well on the way to following in his footsteps.

Rose Blake

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