Sunday 16 October 2011

The Voice of the City



A recent illustration job for Paravion Press. This is a short story called The Voice of the City, by O. Henry. Like all Paravion Press publications, it comes in the form of a small, exquisitely designed chapbook, and it's part of a series of 3 books about New York City, the other 2 being works by Maxim Gorky and Walt Whitman. 

Paravion gave me free rein with this project, and I conceived the illustrations as a series of snapshots of ordinary life in the city. The images do not reference the text explicitly. Instead, they address the question which the story poses: What is the essence of the City? 

The story was written in the early 20th century, but you will notice that the clothing and objects in the images are contemporary. I made that jump because it underscores the universal quality of city life. Almost a hundered years later, New York is still New York.    

You can find The Voice of the City and other books by Paravion Press here.






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