The World Illustration Awards Exhibition returns to Somerset House, London.

The Association of Illustrators, in partnership with the Directory of Illustration in California, announces the return of the World Illustration Awards Exhibition to Somerset House this summer. From  31 July – 28 August 2017 the winning illustrations will  be on show at the Embankment Galleries, Somerset House –  Free Admission

With over 2,300 entries from 64 countries for this year’s World Illustration Awards, the exhibition will showcase 50 shortlisted projects across the eight categories, from advertising and design to books and editorial. Original exhibited works on display will include murals, posters, packaging and children’s books by artists from the UK, USA, Italy, The Netherlands, South Korea, Hong Kong and Israel.

Notable shortlisted works include Claudine O’Sullivan’s complex digital illustrations for the Apple Pencil Campaign; a characterful portrait of Bill Murray for the Washington Post by artist Tony Rodriguez; and Lizzy Stewart’s playful illustrations for children’s book ‘There’s a Tiger in the Garden’. A particularly rich selection of socially-engaged and politically-motivated works will be displayed this year, including Jon Arne Berg’s ‘Anti-Washington’ which depicts instability in the American capital. Also of note are Marguerite Carnec’s series ‘Lie de Vie’ which documents the artist’s time spent volunteering in The Jungle refugee camp in Calais, and A. Richard Allen’s ‘Wave’, which portrays a Hokusai-inspired tide bearing resemblance to the U.S. President’s infamous haircut.

An environmental theme also runs through this year’s exhibition, with works including Chen Winner’s educational animation made for CNN titled ‘Econundrum’ showing the consequences of buying bottled water, and the imaginative series of illustrations titled ‘Yen Town – The Last Unpolluted Territory’ by Sam Ki, depicting a unity of humanity and the natural world.

The exhibition offers an accessible introduction to illustration in its many forms, and demonstrates the importance of visual communication in everyday life. This year, The World Illustration Awards are teaming up with Walker Books, the world’s leading independent publisher of English-language children’s books, to offer the Walker Books Family Programme. A series of free family workshops will be available throughout August in the exhibition space. These include workshops with debut author-illustrator, Alice Tait, award-winning author-illustrator of the ‘Julius Zebra’ series Gary Northfield, upcoming artist and illustrator, Elissa Elwick, and debut graffiti illustrator, Sav Akyuz.

Coinciding with the World Illustration Awards Exhibition at Somerset House in August will be the Summer Screen Prints exhibition with Print Club London, which will showcase original screen prints depicting films from this year’s Film4 Summer Screen at Somerset House season.

The World Illustration Awards 2017 Exhibition will tour the UK throughout the year.

For more information please contact:
Sabine Reimer, Awards Manager at The AOI awards@theaoi.com +44 20 7759 1012
Adam Roberts, Somerset House Press Office press@somersethouse.org.uk +44 20 7845 4624