United Kingdom Mariska Gewald

I AM THE NIGHT Mariska Gewald

‘I am a being of unrivalled intellect and grace, doomed to the life of a lowly house cat. My beauty and prowess are underrated by the lower mortals that share my home. But when the littlest one extends a peace offering of surreptitious snacks, I begrudgingly allow her to become my ally. This is my story of how I put aside my superiority and humbly accepted the friendship of one so far beneath me.’

Mariska developed I am the Night during her MA Children’s Book Illustration in Cambridge. During this master she spent many hours in the print room experimenting with various printing techniques, like mono printing and lithography. The illustrations for I am the Night are made on an offset lithography press as mono prints in different layers. The original prints are 51 by 38 cm.

MARISKA GEWALD is an illustrator and printmaker from Leiden, the Netherlands. Before studying Children’s Book Illustration at the Cambridge School of Arts, she taught printmaking workshops to children of all ages and worked as a graphic designer. In her illustration practice, Mariska likes to work with bold, simplified shapes, textures and vivid colours using a limited colour palette. Her aim is to create bright and fun illustrations with printmaking and mixed media at its foundation. Her current picture-book projects are humorous with a focus on animal characters, as the natural world is a big inspiration in her work. She loves to use a mix of materials when illustrating, like gouache, crayons and pencil crayons, but her favourite medium is printmaking, especially mono printing. The artwork for her picture book Being an Elephant is Epic! has been selected for the Bologna Children’s Book Fair 2021 Illustrators Exhibition. www.mariskagewald.com

JURY REPORT Mariska’s strong, graphic cat imagery and bold colours are playful and energetic. The richly textured cat on the mat, almost spilling off the page – with the hovering shadow, it’s use of colour and texture, and the half white eye staring out – is both exciting and intriguing.