Created by Pictoric Illustrators Club
Curated by Oleh Hryshchenko, Anna Sarvira, and Olena Staranchuk
At Book Arsenal 2021, Pictoric presents the international exhibition of illustrations OPTIMISTS SKEPTICS dedicated to the focus theme of this year’s Festival.
The pandemic has created new challenges, changed society and its outlook for the future. The exhibition focuses on the following questions: What do people expect now? Do they learn from their mistakes? Do they come together to tackle global issues? Are they optimistic or skeptical about the present?
By visually solving current problems, illustrators are surprisingly sensitive to changes in society, culture, and their own environment. By means of visual language, the leading graphic artists of the world will express different visions of modernity: ironic, optimistic, dramatic, and realistic. Viewers will be able to get their own experience through visual metaphors and change their optics from skeptical to optimistic and vice versa.
The exhibition will feature new illustrations by artists from Argentina, Great Britain, Italy, Lithuania, Germany, Serbia, Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, Japan and more.
Pictoric Illustrators Club is a community of illustrators, graphic designers, and artists. They create joint projects, involve artists from different countries to promote high-quality contemporary illustration in Ukraine and abroad, as well as participate in international festivals and book fairs. Pictoric also organizes educational events, workshops and lectures. Among the most famous Pictoric projects today are Prominent Ukrainians, Yellow&Blue, Trust But Verify: Media Literacy in Ukrainian Society, Ukrainian Illustration Garden.