Georgia King | Subtle Shades of Meaning and Expression
Whether it be a colourful portrait of a small child or monochromatic drawing of a humanoid creature, it is clear that Georgia King's main intension through her artistic practice is to make herself and others laugh and to create happiness. A happiness that King is only able to explain through examples of her hometown.
After finishing year 12 in her hometown of Mittagong, NSW, Georgia King started studying a Hybrid Arts Degree at the Australian National University. King explains her little hometown as being a major influence in her work. She describes Mittagong as having, “a kind of peace, quiet and happiness that only the country can really deliver.” Being from this small-town, King says gives her the time to really slow down and take in her surroundings. This slow pace gives her the ability to express moments through her art practice.
Happiness, like that of the one she finds in her country town is what King sets out to achieve in her work. Through her art practice, she is helping her viewers find this same happiness. Georgia King achieves this through her mostly very colourful illustrations which King says is to, “eliminate anguish and fear, sadness and anger.” King explains, “I want to be happy, and this is what these illustrations create for me, but that’s not something I can do without sharing it.” When asking King about what her definition of happiness is, she stated, “happiness is feeling like everything is going to be okay. That’s what it feels like when you’re truly happy.”
It is evident that there is a very clear and powerful cyclical relationship between King's emotions and her work. Her work ranging from happy, colourful and rounded, as seen in ‘Fij the Nudibranch, 2020’ (index 2), to spiky and monochromatic, as seen in ‘goblin queen, 2019’ (index 3) conveys that her process often starts with an emotion. This emotion is then communicated through the colour choice or texture of the drawing. This expression of colours and textures, then leads to explorations of different characters that best represent these colours and emotions, “I draw the creatures from my imagination, I let my ideas take the form of whatever happens on the page, this way I can achieve something new and interesting” says King.
Taking inspiration from people watching, King often relies on posture and body language to design the creatures in her drawings. Always keeping a defining feature of her subjects, such as their stance, an item of clothing, or an expression, King says, “keeping an aspect of my subject’s personality is very important to me.” It is evident that King’s ‘humanoid creatures’ have defining animal-like features, which can include, hides, manes, tails, and animal ears. These animal-inspired creatures form the basis of King’s work, she explains, “I find animals far more interesting than humans.” The merging of these particular inspirations is what helps King create her fascinating and often mystical creatures.
Photo credit: By the Artist
King works with an array of different drawing techniques and mediums but finds the best colour results for her work in textas on paper. Although working with textas is often thought of as not ‘high-brow’, King says that she finds the sheer intensity of their colours to be brilliant and often yield exciting results. “The moment I make a mark on the page, I want more” King explains.
These nuanced drawings aren’t always this colourful and she explains that her black and white drawings are a safety net for her. Comparing herself to her grandmother, who was a huge lover of bright and bold colours but seemed to often fall back on neutral tones, explaining that her grandmother’s beige is her black and white. This said, although without colour, the viewer can still see the power of the sharp black lines in her work. The intentional lines fit perfectly with the creatures in her work and aids in creates an understanding of the characters that she is portraying.
King's joyful, nuanced, colourful and, interesting drawing’s, which are inspired by animals and people watching shows how she can be emotional and vulnerable through her work. This array of different styles of drawings clearly show Georgia King’s intentions, which is to make people around her happy.
