We first came across James Merry's work in relation to Björk and have since delved deeper into his simple and spectacular reinventions of the rule book of embroidery. You can read more about JT and his connections with Damien Hirst and Iceland here.
James Merry photo credit: Billy Hayes
James Merry nominated Malaysian illustrator Nadhir Nor:
Nadhir Nor is a poet. with each of his illustrations comes a story, whispered softly into your ear - an observation, a sensation, a promise. I felt an incredible connection to his work as soon as I stumbled across it on Instagram last year. There's a sublime magical quality to it - an overwhelming sensitivity & romanticism, so rarely handled with such strong and effortless technical finesse.
“Nadhir Nor is a poet. with each of his illustrations comes a story, whispered softly into your ear - an observation, a sensation, a promise.”
I adore how each drawing is its own world - a self-contained bubble with its own secrets, its own laws of physics. with the lightest of touches, Nature predominantly sets the emotional tone - miniature psychological landscapes, blurring the topographical and the human; planets wane into pieces, floating like petals; a flower of thought unfurls from a head...
I couldn't be more excited to watch how Nadhir is going to grow as an artist - in whichever direction he chooses. His work so far has hinted at a full and magical world lurking beyond the edge of each drawing... I just want to crawl inside them and stay there for a while.
Work by Nadhir Nor:
