Unexpected Sides of Animal Life in the Paintings of Alison Friend
Irish artist Alison Friend has been creating postcards and illustrations for children's books for many years. Alison can depict anything, but she likes animals the most. The artist has her own approach to depicting our smaller brothers. In her case, they have quite human characters and habits, including bad ones.
Alison Friend claims she can’t remember when she started drawing. She has been in the visual arts for as long as she can remember. As a preschooler, she would painstakingly copy animals from book illustrations into an album. After school, Friend graduated from the University of Ulster in Belfast with a degree in visual communication.
As in childhood, Alison Friend prefers to depict animals. At the same time, the artist does not strive for realism. Her characters have human features and look cute and funny. The artist has her own special view on creativity. She believes that the characters in her works live their own lives.
Alison Friend has designed dozens of children's books and hundreds of postcards. But the world knows her not only as a talented illustrator. Alison's oil paintings have participated in more than 40 exhibitions and are presented in several major galleries in London, Dublin, New York and Tokyo.
Irishwoman Alison draws postcards with cute, human-like animals, and this is considered original. But long before her, the wonderful Soviet artist Vladimir Zarubin worked in this genre.