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Helios Design Labs Janine Rewell Shine United Manual Exhibit
July/August 2017 Twenty-Four Dollars commarts.com
JANINE REWELL
BY GARRICK WEBSTER
I
would really like to design rides for amusement parks, like teacups or carousels,” says Finnish illustrator Janine Rewell.
And that ambition doesn’t seem too unreasonable at all. We sit in the converted church where Rewell and eleven other creatives work, in Helsinki’s Kallio district. She has been going through her portfolio, showing me large-scale projects she has designed for shopping malls in the Far East. For instance, at the Lotte World Mall in Seoul, South Korea, Rewell’s charming illustrations representing spring, summer and autumn were turned into life-sized 3-D window displays across three seasonal campaigns during 2016. So a Janine Rewell–style theme park experience seems the next logical step. For her project with Lotte, Rewell watched the company’s creative team bring her illustrations to life. “I did some key illustrations for them, and then they had their 3-D rendering team turn the elements into three-dimensional objects,” she says. “It was really fun to see how they interpreted my forms in 3-D, and I think they did a good job.” All done in the artist’s colorful, modern Finnish style, it’s fascinating to see the setting spring from the 2-D page into a diorama that people can walk around in and explore. Tulips, trees, cats, rabbits, bees and hummingbirds—areas of the shopping mall, coming to life in a way Rewell could hardly have thought possible when she began her career ten years ago.
“I want to give experiences to people, like everybody in this field,” she says. “But it would be great if they could go inside the illustrations, where the experience is more whole.” This explosion into three dimensions is the latest phase in Rewell’s career, and it hasn’t come about by accident. A few years ago, she decided to take a course to learn how to make dollhouses. Courses like this are very inexpensive in
Finland, where ongoing education is well funded. The result was Rewell’s NOOKS Dollhouse Collection, a self-initiated project she released in 2015. Cut, built and hand-painted by Rewell and her assistant, the elegant little structures come complete with furnishings and animal inhabitants. The project didn’t just inspire Rewell; it brought in clients who are just as ambitious and inspired as she is. “In China, [clients] saw the monkey house–themed dollhouse, and they wanted to build it at human size for Chinese New Year last year,” says Rewell. “So they contacted me and said, ‘Could we buy the usage rights for the monkey house for the Year of the Monkey?’ They wanted to build it inside a shopping mall where people could go inside it. They changed the color palette, but they did an exact life-sized replica.” Rewell often does self-initiated projects with a view to landing boundary-breaking commissions. When she was a speaker at the 2013 Beyonderground festival in Hasselt, Belgium, the organizers invited her to paint a mural in a window space on the main square. She designed a pink, blue, beige and white setting featuring animals, umbrellas, sailboats and more—then painted it by hand. Meanwhile, her friend Sami Salmenkivi captured the process to produce a time-lapse video, which was then shared on Vimeo. “A year later, Samsung got in touch,” says Rewell. Its creative team wanted to do something similar for Samsung’s Galaxy tablet. “The original video got barely 3,000 views, but somehow the right people in Samsung headquarters saw it,” she says. The next thing she knew, she was in Barcelona, on set with 50 people, ready to be featured in two advertising films. “I thought they would film my hands drawing, and then all of a sudden I’m being given direction on how to act, like an actor. I didn’t know my face would be in it.”
Right: “I illustrated three seasonal campaigns for Lotte World Mall, the biggest shopping center in Seoul, South Korea. For the summer campaign, which had a tropical theme with jungle animals and a fresh sea breeze, the Korean design agency DESIGNTIST made my illustrations into 3-D shapes that bloomed in beautiful window displays and mall installations. My illustrations were also used in animations, wall sheets and banners.” DESIGNTIST, production designer/design firm; Lotte World Mall, client. 62
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ADVERTISING 1 (series) Peter Schafrick, photographer Tim Schavitz, art director Motorola, client Used as wallpaper for Motorola smartphones.
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SELF-PROMOTION 1 James Russell/Ann Rutherford, photographers Theil Morgan, art director Russell Rutherford Group, producer AtEdge, client “Used in a print and electronic co-op advertising campaign with AtEdge.”
2 (series) Kristina Varaksina, photographer Espen Gjertzen Oeydvin, designer “A psychological study of the relationship between twins, intertwined with surrealist props and metaphors. Used in direct mail postcards, promo booklets and e-mail blasts sent to potential clients and ad agencies.”
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FRESH JVDAS BERRA
Models in fields of flowers, on mountains, in the jungle—a strong sense of adventure permeates the fashion photography of Jvdas Berra, who is always on the lookout for new places to shoot. “My work environment is chaos, improvisation and freedom, a creative world where my team and I can express ideas,” he says. Berra’s interest in photography began as a hobby, and his energetic style emerged solely from the practice of creating moments that can never be replicated. “My passion and craziness are the techniques I use to take bright, colorful photographs,” he explains. “I love to open windows to worlds of fantasy and perfection.” A staunch believer in the power of art to change the world, Berra has featured socially conscious messages in some of his favorite projects— Autumn for the Elephants, one of his personal series, was sold in galleries to raise funds for animal foundations. “I like to believe that creating art will end war and violence,” he says. “Art is the answer.” jvdasberra.net
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