Illustrator Hotlist 2019

Illustration is about so much more than pretty pictures or decorative imagery to augment editorial copy, packaging and brand campaigns.

- Emily Gosling

Throughout its history, illustration has been used to refract social and political issues – those around body image, gender and diversity, for instance – and subtly (or overtly, in some cases) show us that there’s no single way of viewing the world or the people in it. The nature of illustration, in that it’s used for commercial purposes and seen by more eyes than, say, fine art pieces hanging in a museum, means that it has huge power in its visibility. As this list shows, that’s something which a number of illustrators are increasingly taking advantage of in these strange and turbulent times.

Such is the case in the work of Ashley Lukashevsky, who in whatever she does, actively pushes to create images that represent those people who rarely get the depictions or airtime they deserve in mainstream media.

Lukashevsky is just one of the 16 illustrators we’re celebrating here as some of the most exciting talent of 2019. It’s likely you’ve seen some of this work before – Polly Nor for instance, and her darkly humorous, feminist images of women and their demons deservedly took Instagram by storm – while other artists will be less familiar. Everyone on the list, though, is doing something fresh and exciting, either in their process, style, voice or approach.