Some reportage illustrations from George Butler.
George Butler is an artist and illustrator specialising in travel and current affairs. His drawings, done in situ are in pen, ink and watercolour. In August 2012 George walked from Turkey across the border into Syria, where as an unofficial guest of the rebel Free Syrian Army he spent 4 days drawing the civil war damaged, small and empty town of Azaz. 6 months later he made a similar trip back to Syria to record the stories amongst the refugees and the field hospitals. These drawings were reproduced by the Times, the Guardian, Evening Standard, Der Spiegel, ARD television Germany, NPR (USA) and reported on the BBC World News, BBC World Service, CNN twice, Al Arabiya and Monocle Radio.
However, his sense of adventure did not start her here - since leaving Kingston university, drawing has taken George around the world, depicting the oil fields in Azerbaijan, soldiers in Afghanistan, reconstructive plastic surgery, G20 riots, the New York Fire Department and Asian Elephants.
Amongst several London based solo exhibitions, he won the Editorial and Overall award for illustration at the V&A Illustration Awards and an International Media Award in May 2013. His work has been exhibited in the Times Watercolour Competition, the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours exhibition at the Mall Galleries, 2008, 2009 & 2011, 2013 where he won the June Stokes Roberts Bursary and the Winsor and Newton Young Artist’s Award.
"George Butler combines the curiosity and wanderlust of David Attenborough with the delicacy of brush of Audubon, travelling afar to bring back a subtle evocation of fauna and flora and the people he meets in far-flung places." Geordie Greig, Editor in Chief. The Mail on Sunday.
"We seem to have lost the art of the observational reporter with a sketchbook to photography, Butler's memorable images show that a closely observed drawing is not just worth a thousand words but hundreds of photographs." A A Gill
"George Butler's extraordinarily sensitive pictures of life in all its forms tell us more about the world than most photography can." Robin Hanbury Tenison
This is Ismail, (in Azaz, Syria) a goat herder, wandering along and watering his goats at a nearby tap. In bizarre contrast to the line of shops leading the opposite direction - rearranged, permanently by the tank's cannons, occasionally a shop keeper will begin a bit of tidying up, a daunting task when the entire row needs rebuilding.
Chef Chaoun
G20 Riots
