Bloomberg Portraits

by jimmy turrell on Thursday 22 December 2011


































Over the last few months I've been commisioned by Richard Turley at Bloomberg Businessweek to illustrate portraits for their Hard Choices column. Basically various business people are interviewed about a crucial decision they've had to make which affected the course of their company. 


Before I took over they had a problem in that the straight photographic portraits often resulted in a rather stiff and unattractive outcome.Instead they wanted a painted portrait of each person surrounded by extra elements which were relevant to that particular story i.e. company logos, other relevant characters, symbols etc.


It's sometimes a challenge to make these guys look interesting but here's a select few that I think have worked.

Political Magazines - Covers For Newsweek and Internazionale

by jimmy turrell on Wednesday 21 December 2011





























































I've worked on a few illustrations for magazines of a more political bent lately including the covers for both Italian magazine Internazionale and Newsweek. For their cover story about the crisis of capitalism they wanted Karl Marx as Santa Claus - a fairly straightforward assignment that I gave them three options for. They went for the more photographic piece with the sun over NYC.

Another cover I worked on for them concerned Assad's censorship of the media in Syria. Again I gave them two options - the Syrian flag blocking out his mouth was chosen over the barbed wire.

The Newsweek illo's were both based around the negative connotations of the financial collapse so I tried to keep them both relatively gritty - there of Angela Merkel and Jon Corzeen. Big up to the Art Directors - Giovanni De Mauro and Nick Mrozowski for Internazionale and Leah Purcell and Lindsay Ballant for Newsweek.









Primitive Heritage

by jimmy turrell on Saturday 3 December 2011




Just set up this morning down in Great Western Studios. I'm selling prints from the new collaborative project I'm working on - Primitive Heritage. Working alongside James Horwitz from 2xelliot and Mark Bloom at Mashcreative we aim to produce a series of limited edition risoprints and screenprints and the occasional one off piece. The torn up Michael Jackson and Kanye Prints are the first of this run. If you get a chance pop down to the open studios this weekend - it runs from 12 - 6 Saturday and Sunday.

Details are here: http://www.greatwesternstudios.com/events/399-05-10-11-open-studios

Open Studios at Great Western Studios

by jimmy turrell on Friday 2 December 2011







Pop down to Great Western Studios this weekend if you get the chance. I'll be opening my studio along with hundreds of the other artists, designers and craftspeople. I'll be selling Primitive Heritage prints (see the Kanye and Michael Jacksons prints above - only £25) and some one off collage pieces and screenprints (the other two pics). It would be great to meet up and have a cup of tea so hopefully see you down there.