10 Emerging Illustration Artists

An illustration can be created in many forms, from acrylic to murals, to character design. This unique art form provides the viewer the human connection while at the same time delivering a meaningful message through their concepts, sometimes reflecting social and political issues. The use of color, narrative, and humor unites these illustrators which create complex ideas into a single image. 

The Artling picked 10 of the top emerging illustration artists listed with The Artling that are definitely worth a look. The amount of detail in their illustrations will keep you seeing new aspects to the work everytime you look!

Jayde Cardinalli

"I am a California based designer and illustrator and take inspiration from fashion, textiles, nature, and vintage ephemera."

With a BFA in Graphic Design, she is skilled in hand-drawn & digital techniques, animation, product design, and art direction. Jayde's illustrations can be found on clothing, as furniture, wallpaper, large scale murals, children’s books, and in editorials including Elle, Vogue, and Vanity Fair.

Dey Irfan Adianto

Growing up in Jakarta, Dey Irfan found his calling in art when he moved to Bandung and was exposed to its growing creative scene. Upon graduating high school, he moved to Singapore to learn art in Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, then in the Lasalle College of the Arts to pursue a Bachelor's in Fine Arts. He is currently based in Bandung.

"Some of the driving forces for my craft are the subjects of landscape, nature, human psychology, and all the interventions done upon them."

Amelia Ilangaratne

Amelia Ilangaratne is an Artist and Illustrator based in London. She graduated from the University of Leeds in 2013 with First Class Honours in BA Art and Design.

"Working in pen, ink and watercolour, I create highly delicate and intricate animal illustrations. Drawing inspiration from the natural world, my artwork explores uncanny, dreamlike scenarios involving the animal kingdom. The elephant and the butterfly are often juxtaposed to incite a sense of surreality. Other influences range from the playful illustrations of children’s literature, to ancient medieval bestiaries and traditional Japanese and Chinese art."

Amelia has exhibited at Gallery Munro House, Leeds, and the Peter Ingram Gallery, Apsley.

Leah Clough

Leah Clough (b. 1985) is a Hong Kong-born drawing artist, whose artwork pays homage to botanical etchings and illustrations. Primarily working in pen and ink, she creates intricate drawings that are characterized by their micro detail of lines and floral imagery. Leah uses ordinary gel pens as a drawing tool to capture the exotic and animal side of flowers. With a background degree of Drawing and Applied Arts and a Masters in Fine Art Drawing, she has shown in London, Croatia and Hong Kong.

"I believe in the artist and the viewer bringing each of their histories to the picture - I leave clues hidden in the drawings for you to find and create your own story. Although a drawing may represent my own memories or imagination, they are also purposely abstract and mysterious. They possess a dream-like quality, which is open to interpretation."

Alena Kudriashova

Trained in Architecture and Interior design, Alena has started sketching when she moved to London in 2012. After beautiful and wide-open spaces of Saint Petersburg, London seemed dirty, claustrophobic, and unfriendly.

"Everything changed when I took a sketchbook and started to sketch - I learnt to notice the ordinary and turning them into something extraordinary."

Tetsuya Toshima

"I am always competing against time.  

Time governs both life and death.  

The basis of time, past, present, and future, act as proof of one's existence.  

Therefore I sometimes fall into the illusion that I am being swept away in the flow of time.  

Time has a universality to it as it ticks by and bestows to my works a myriad of indefensible feelings and stories.  

I strive to create that universality in my works.  

Time is always fluid.  I find the entangled fragments of stories in that fluidity and turn them into my works."

Tetsuya is active in the fields of television, graphics, illustration, fine art, interiors, advertising, and fashion. In order to create works that present a universal consciousness of time, he uses a wide variety of methods and mediums to visually communicate messages and conceptual ideas.

May Lim

The works of May Lim reflect a life-long obsession with beauty, the disturbing and the celebration of loss. Her practice often involves the examination of the ever-fluid boundaries between repulsion and attraction.

“With a significant background in art, I hope to bring an alternative vision to that of my contemporaries in graphic design. My sources of influence span the mediums of film, art and writing which I seek to imbue in my work. While I am constantly finding ways to marry the realms of art and graphic design in my own terms, I never fully consider myself an artist or a graphic designer.”

Boscow Law

Bosco Law was born in 1989, Hong Kong. He currently lives and works in Hong Kong and graduated with Bachelor of Fine Arts, at The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2012. Bosco's ink paintings are intricate, slowly dotted, in a near-pointillist style, their conceptual meanings often overshadowed by their narrative appearances.

"For me, drawing is subconscious. It represents an individual’s free will and independent identity. My artistic practice draws strongly from the process of automatic drawing favored by surrealist artists. Law’s works characterize the tension between constraint and liberation, and infer issues about identity, power and struggle."

Aeropalmics

Aeropalmics is a Singaporean artist and multidisciplinary creative best known for her steadfast attention to detail within her pencil and papercut pieces that range from the pleasing to the macabre.

"I find inspiration in the everyday, focusing on the nuances of the human condition coupled with references to the natural world."

Erik Foy

Eric Fok is a Macau based painter. His works are a unique blend of tradition and modernity. Using a technical pen and paper that is aged using tea, he integrates ancient maps with modern constructions.

Illustration Artists are pushing the boundaries by using a multitude of art mediums - ink, pencil drawings, watercolors - as you can see in this article. These artists are masters of creating amazingly expressive illustrations and portraying emotion in their artworks!

Take a look at the specially curated illustrations artworks we have on The Artling.