Johanna Walderdorff's illustrative eye for the absurd

Johanna Walderdoff is a German illustrator with an astute eye for the absurd. After studying Illustration at Middlesex University, Johanna continued to work as an illustrator and graphic designer, but over the past months has developed an intriguing new style.

“Just recently I moved to Leipzig” she explains, “Germany’s boomtown as many call it right now, and I’m enjoying the city’s artistic atmosphere and focusing exclusively on my illustrations.” Johanna’s decision to divert her concentration to illustrative work has had very exciting results. Her pieces are large and characterful, humorous in their warped inner workings. Take her piece Goat Eater, a large illustration landscape of a poolside resort, depicts its residents resting and dancing, all in the nude, but there’s an elephant in the room – a giant head eating goats. Johanna says this is inspired by elements of everyday life: “My work is an output of all the things I absorb daily, at the moment by reading Richard Brautigan, listening to Harry Nilsson and loving the architecture of Californian case study houses.”

Mixing Chris Simpson-like references with a delicious colour palette, how peculiarly comic Johanna’s work has become is fantastic in its nonsense. In terms of narrative we can’t imagine what she’ll come up with next.