Jessamy Hawke

Jessamy Hawke is an illustrator working in ink, gouache, watercolour, and linocut-printmaking, having graduated from MA Illustration at Kingston University in 2016. Her work draws on the two themes of literature and landscape, where she is interested in connecting drawing with poetry and literature, as well as using illustration and hand-drawn maps to document her experience of a landscape.

Much of Jessamy’s work uses novels and poems as starting points to create visually striking interpretations of the writer’s narrative. By visualising the characters, landscape, and storyline set out by the author, she aims to convey the atmosphere, and give the viewer a sense of the story and it’s backdrop to add another layer to the narrative.

In her landscape work she aims to translate walking and experience of a place into drawing and painting. By sketching on-site at various locations across the UK, Jessamy paints scenes to capture her experience, document her route, and reference the landscape’s texture, architecture, and history. With her illustrations, maps, and paintings, she wants to engage the viewer with the landscape as she portrayed it.

Jessamy’s project ‘A Midnight Clear’, based on William Wharton’s wartime novel, was shortlisted for the 2016 V&A Student Illustrator of the Year Award, and her magazine illustration was Runner-Up in the Little White Lies Creative Brief competition in March 2017. She regularly takes on commissions, including landscapes, cityscapes, and maps.