Illustrator Anil Rinat’s not-quite-benevolent dreamscapes

Anil Rinat is a visual artist currently living in Israel who describes herself as an illustrator, animator and musician. After graduating from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem, Anil moved to Tel Aviv where she can be found working as the owner of Modern Times Fanzine and making illustrations and GIFs that clutch at — and hold — your attention.

Since she was young, Anil has gravitated towards the make-believe realm. “It was before I knew the difference between art and illustration, but I knew that I love to create fictional worlds and characters,” she says. “Illustration as a practice revealed to me later on mainly through comic books and graphic novels that I read and made me want to study illustration and tell a story through drawing. I gained my love for animation during my studies. I wanted to combine my illustrations with music and I realised that I own tools that allow me to animate and bring my illustrations to life, combine them with sound and create a more harmonic experience.”

Anil’s work is marked by the continued freshness of her approach, doubtless helped through her commitment to making one illusion every day. Her inflatable cast of characters are quick to welcome with wide-stretched eyes and benevolent grins. “I am passionate about drawing people and characters, mostly with exaggerated movements and twisted, ‘dumb’ facial expressions,” Anil comments. “Illustrating is a tool to approach people and through the character’s strange expressions, I feel that I can reach a wider range of people who can love and identify with my characters. In addition it allows me to create a cynical and absurd world that represents the world we live in from a slight childish but honest point of view. I mostly enjoy creating smiling characters because they make the illustration process and the outcome more optimistic and give me a better feeling, I hope viewers feel the same.”

Anil’s GIFs and illustrations start life as “meaningless scribbles on paper”, subconscious interpretations of dreams, music, interactions and experiences, although as Anil points out, she finds inspiration at the hands of other artists like Hayao Miyazaki, Takashi Murakami and the Japanese pop culture, Ori Toor, Adam Becket, Lorenzo Mattotti and Gary Baseman. “I illustrate from an experimental place, examine and explore new technics and love mistakes,” Anil says of her illustrative process. “Recently my lines have become more vector, smooth and digital. My hand drawn illustrations have a sketchy, ‘dirty’ feeling and the computer gives them a cleaner, smoother touch. Moreover, illustrating on the computer allows me an endless play with colours, compositions and effects I experiment with. In my work, I always use strong colours, especially pink, and attempt to keep a light and flowing line that creates a harmonic movement. I enjoy researching movement and when I illustrate I examine its representation thorough curved lines, repetitiveness, duplication and distortion.”