Rob Dunlavey (2)
This is part 2 of 3 of the interview with Rob. I really enjoy Rob’s imagery especially his personal work. Above we have selection of commercial and personal illustrations. Check out his new portfolio of character design on his blog.
Q: How and why did you start to draw animals?
A: I’ve been interested and sympathetic feeling toward all kinds of animals my entire life. We lived out in the country so there were plenty of opportunities to explore and discover things. My childhood dreams of wanting to be a zookeeper or veterinarian evolved into an environmental consciousness when I hit my teens. Art has been the other passion obviously. I was disappointed that my studies in Fine Art (BA painting, MFA sculpture) led me to conclude that “serious art” had no business depicting animals. You could talk about landscape but not the organisms that were part of its ecology. That has changed but I think in general, animals are often used in an ironic or symbolic way in order for the art to be about itself rather than the subject it appears to be about. Anyway, luckily, I discovered the work of Morris Graves and a few other artists that depicted various animals in a sympathetic light. In order to experience animals in art, I just had to expand my search criteria a little: children’s books and Disney films, comics, other design and illustration art.