Diane Arbus

Arbus was a photographer who was known as "the photographer of freaks"; her black and white photographs were of people on the outskirts of society and "normalcy" and her work was often considered controversial. She photographed many circus performers as part of her work.

Lucy Casson

Lucy Casson is a sculptur who makes figures using materials she collects on the streets, using found objects and recycled materials such as metal wood and wire. Observations of people, animals and scenarios inspire her cartoon like characters. Like Julie Arkell's work the creatures she makes are quite quirky and freakish, alhough her style is very different.

Sara Fanelli

Sara Fanelli is a childrens book author and her illustartions combine drawing and collage with design and typography. Her work is playful and colourful and very stylised. Alot of the illustrations she designs are quite freakish and I have chosen to incliude her work in my research as I think her style could influence my own work. Also the typography element of her work is useful to my own need to involve typography in my album covers.

Julie Arkell

Julie Arkell is known as a contempory folk artist who makes small doll like people and creatures. Her work is mixed media, she makes the papier mache figures, stuffs bodies and embroiders their little clothes. She uses recycled materials, found objects, discarded toys, newspaper and scarps of fabric ect, creating alot of different textures. I really like the handmade element to her work and the distintive style, her small characters are really unique and interesting, they are very quaint and fairy-tale like. Some of her dolls are completely 3d and some are more 2d with raised elements. I'd really like to experiement with making my own small doll of one of the freakshow chracters as part of development for this project.

Jamie Reid

I have included Reid's work in my research as I really like his collage style of working, I like how his work looks kind of thrown together and random, however the aesthetic has obviously been well considered as the layout of his collages allways work. I would like to produce a collage in the same style as Reid's work featuring a freakshow theme, maybe using old black and white photos of circus performers and old advertisements and posters. I defintely think i will try and include an experimentation using collage influenced by Reid's work.

Arthur Rackham

I find Rackham's illustrations for childrens book's actually quite sinister and dark. Alot of his characters are I would say quite sinister and creepy; most of his illustrations have very dull and dark colours and his style is very realistic and would be more appealing for adults I would think. Although his work is from the early twentieth century so I understand why this is so. I think his illustrations are beautiful and very intricate, and he obviously had a brilliant imagination. I have chosen to include his work as not only do i enjoy his work, but I think it is related to my project in the sense that alot of his illustrations feature strange creatures from stories which i think links with the "freaks" in my own work. His illustrations are very fine art I would say and not what I would personally consider typical illustration. In my own work I have allways been more fine art but have started to be more illustrative, although I would defintely look at Rackham's work to influence my own style.

Thomas S Kuebler

Kuebler is a sculptor who makes life size wax sculptures featuring freaks, horrors and legends. His work includes a sideshow series consisting of a number of "freaks", an obvious connection to my project on freakshow chracters. I think Kuebler's work is extremely impressive, the wax works are realistic and detailed and must require such skill. I think his work is defintely unique and also somewhat creepy, but I find his focus on these characters is a very interesting subject. I enjoy working with my hands and am interested in sculpture and 3d work so when I found this artist his work appealed to me straight away.