Tag Archives: Ellen Surrey

Illustrators inspire and lead the way at global gathering

A sell out crowd squeezed into the Portland Art Museum earlier this summer to experience ICON8, the world’s premier illustration conference, where Art Center leaders dominated the spotlight. More than a year in the planning, ICON8 is a must-go event for anyone serious about illustration and eager to mingle with all the key trade influencers.

Just being invited to speak is an honor in the illustration world, on par with headlining at SXSW, screening your film at Cannes or showing your classic wheels at Pebble. Organizers, who aim to amaze, inform and inspire, select only the top illustrators, designers, art directors, educators, reps, publishers and makers to occupy the main stage or lead workshops.

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Oh, modernist pioneers! Recent grad Ellen Surrey illustrates California’s trailblazing women

Ellen Surrey is a fervent flea market flâneur. “My greatest inspiration comes from American nostalgia, and a single thrift store find can hold so much history,” says the Spring 2014 Illustration graduate whose work is featured above and on the cover of the current issue of Dot magazine.

Her love of Americana is evident throughout her work, including her illustrations of folklore hero Paul Bunyan, a series that marked an artistic turning point for Surrey. “I really pushed myself stylistically and medium-wise and from that point on I started to gain a lot more confidence as an illustrator.”

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Illustration Students Awarded Scholarships from Society of Illustrators, Works on View in New York

Three works by Art Center Illustration students Hannah Chi, Michael Kuo and Ellen Surrey were recently selected from more than 5,000 entries as being among the “best of the best” in the Society of Illustrators annual Student Scholarship Competition. The artists were awarded monetary scholarships at an opening reception for the 2013 Student Scholarship Exhibition.

Chi’s Burdens depicts a humanoid zebra pedaling a bicycle cart overflowing with cast-off items. In Kuo’s Ramen Time, an Alice in Wonderland-like figure peers into a giant bowl of soup. And Surrey’s Normal Abnormal reveals the colorful inner workings of the brain inside the heads of two otherwise dark silhouettes.

Student Michael Kuo is one of the Society of Illustrators 2013 Student Scholarship Awards winners with his printmaking piece "Ramen Time."

Student Michael Kuo won a Society of Illustrators 2013 Student Scholarship Award for Ramen Time.

The students’ winning illustrations are now on view at the Society’s Museum of Illustration in New York, through June 5, joining those by 10 other Art Center students whose work was also recognized by the jury of professionals assembled by the Society of Illustrators that selected winning entries based on the quality of technique, concept and skill with medium used.

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