Malaika Jenine Tayach

As a kid, my childhood reality combined with elements of fantasy to make mundane situations more entertaining but, as I have gotten older, those fantasy elements seemed to fade away until I came across Japanese manga. The unique narratives sparked my imagination once again and brought out the child within me.

The theme of my exhibition explores how stories are told through illustrations. The exhibition would progress from realism, and traditional illustrative techniques, to contemporary manga, digital illustration and animation. Fantasy characters have been developed through various media and methods to illustrate narratives that celebrate the creativity of a child’s imagination. I aim to portray fantasy-esque narratives that progresses from reality to a world of fiction and create dream-like landscapes that are outside the audience’s everyday reality. The progression from traditional drawings to digital media shows the technological advancements in illustration and the evolution of storytelling. From physical books to online stories, I intend to immerse my audience in the many ways in which stories are told. My exhibition is targeted to an audience of all ages, allowing them to escape reality when progressing through my arrangement.

The main style evident throughout my works is the clear inspiration gained from manga and character development. Elements of manga have been referenced in both traditional and digital drawings, such as the exploration of tonal values through cel-shading to build depth and place emphasis on the character’s unique features. Self-portraiture was integrated with the Shounen anime style to exaggerate character features to develop characters that the audience can relate to in some way. My works were also arranged in sequences, diptychs and triptychs, to suggest the idea of narratives evident in comic books or story books. This encourages the viewer to follow a visual storyline as if they were reading a book when progressing through my exhibition. The arrangement of my artworks also aims to take the audience through the development of media. From paper to computers, the audience will experience the evolution of traditional to contemporary storytelling techniques in my exhibition space.