Ilustração de Derek Chatwood

Derek Chatwood, ou The Searcher como é conhecido no flickr, é americano, game designer e ilustrador. Em seu trabalho, são óbvias as fortes referências políticas atuais e da cultura popular em geral, sempre com um toque de humor sarcástico.

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Usando técnicas mistas (mas geralmente colorindo no Photoshop), desenha com um estilo característico que remete à comics antigas e ilustrações do começo do século XX – contornos bem marcados, abusando de linhas soltas – com um toque pessoal voltado para o grunge, um desenho mais sujo. Alguns até mesmo saem direto de seu sketchbook para o computador.
Além das pinturas, cada obra vem acompanhada de um texto escrito por ele, de cunho político ou pessoal, também com seu sarcasmo característico. Escrita, aliás, parece ser seu outro hobby. Por exemplo, a história de “Sympathy Misplaced”:

“Wow, she’s cute. Did you draw that?” she asked. “Yes,” I said, marveling at how many people can see a person sitting in a bar with a pencil and sketchbook and sketching and still not put it all together. I could hear the bartender’s eyes rolling. He slipped me a shot unasked, I guess he felt my pain. Ugh, I hate Jäger.

“Can you draw me?” she asked. “Not really,” I replied. “I usually try to draw something interesting to me.” Blank stare, went right over her bleached head. “So why her then,” she asked.

“Well, she’s sixteen years old, and was arrested for doing wrestling moves on her seven year old sister. She broke her arm, cracked her ribs, damaged her spine and eventually crushed her windpipe. When her sister wouldn’t wake up, she put her in the bathtub, yelled at her, and then cracked a raw egg into her mouth to see if she was “messing with her”. No longer breathing, the egg just slid down her sister’s throat. After about thirty minutes of this, she finally called 911. But her little sister was already dead. I thought the dichotomy between the brutality of the act and the cuteness of the girl was interesting enough to explore.”

Blank stare. Probably shouldn’t have used “dichotomy”. She gathered her rounds of touchdowns and didn’t talk to me anymore after that. I downed the Jäger. “

E ele, como todos, aproveitou a onda da eleição de Obama pra fazer graça da sua forma:

Você também pode adquirir reproduções de alguns trabalhos dele por aqui:
http://www.imagekind.com/MemberProfile.aspx?MID=927a377c-4ea5-44c1-811a-175c6e392951

Flickr: http://flickr.com/photos/bar-art/