Beppe Giacobbe is one of the most praised Italian illustrators, featured in numerous magazines as well as exhibitions, and one of the first conceptual illustrators. But what does this mean?
Conceptual illustration has the need to communicate something: an idea, a problem, a concept. Usually it has hidden meanings, it loves to play with the viewer’s mind and uses visual metaphors and mind tricks to really get the audience inside the meaning. More generally: those type of illustration are not communicating what it seems at first sight. And you feel there is something more behind what you’re looking at.
Back to our illustrator; we don’t want him to feel not considered, don’t we? He’s the star, by the way. We were about to talk of Visionary Dictionary, Giacobbe’s first monograph.
It’s a collection of over 250 illustrations, subdivided into key topics – identity, hope, alienation… – and sorted alphabetically, like -as the title suggest- a visual dictionary. Why? As the author explains,
“My illustrations are ambivalent images that can be linked to an article, as usually happens, but they can also live outside their textual context.”
“Illustration is a service”.
Specialised in editorial illustration, with great simplicity Giacobbe offers a worldview that invites us to reflect on the current state of things: the contradiction of the world we live in, revealed through his sensibility and point of view. His illustration are a mixture of irony, poetry and provocation; his style is unmistakable, playing with delicate lines and colours.
Discover More:
Visionary Dictionary, the book.
Beppe Giacobbo’s website.
Zoom On Contemporary Art 