Tonke Koppelaar

EVIE AND AYO

Tonke Koppelaar

Evie and Ayo are on the hill flying the kite, as on every Saturday afternoon. But on this warm, warm summer day, the wind blows fast and strong. Before Evie knows it, her kite is gone… As an illustrator and animator, Tonke Koppelaar works with both moving and still images. Through her stories, she gently guides you around her world. In her work, detail and subtlety are combined with emotion and playfulness. She likes to play with warm colours, and also to work with ‘wet’ materials. Her work testifies to her determination to never lose her own childlikeness. She is also strongly drawn to minorities; the ones whose stories are yet to be told.

TONKE KOPPELAAR

graduated from hku University of the Arts in Utrecht, department of Illustration, in 2020. She was born in 1996 and grew up in a small village; her favourite pastimes were reading and climbing trees and messing up her knees with skate rolling. In her world, Peter Pan existed, and the trees waved at her, and Mr Reality was best of friends with Mrs Imagination. At the age of 24, she sometimes still longs for that life, where so many things were new and fascinating. Nowadays she lives in Utrecht, a city right in the middle of the Netherlands, where she enjoys cycling, and is still reading and drawing, drawing, drawing… www.tonkekoppelaar.nl

JURY REPORT Tonke Koppelaar’s work is harmonious in terms of colour and composition. Each illustration takes another and exciting perspective. The minimalistic figures are clear and persuasive, seemingly drawn in one go. The illustrations present a poetic story about helping each other and playing together, in this case with a kite. Although somewhat stereotypical in terms of gender roles – the boy does the carpentry while the girl awaits the result – it is a warm and delightful story as a whole. Tonke manages to say a lot with minimal means.