Anna Bhushan

Specialist Subject Areas

Narrative and book illustration

Qualifications

MA (hons) Communication Art and Design, Royal College of Art.
BA (hons) Illustration(First), University of Brighton.

Biography

Since graduating from the Royal College of Art in 2004, Anna has worked on a range of editorial and publishing assignments for clients in the UK, U.S.A and recently India. This year she illustrated The Bhagavad Gita for the Folio Society. This followed an earlier Folio Society commission to illustrate Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie, which led to the original paintings being purchased by the author. Last year she illustrated her first book for children called Rhymes for Ranga, commissioned by Random House, Delhi. She has been a regular contributor to The Guardian and The New York Times since 2006. Other clients include The New Yorker, The Independent, The LA Times, World of Interiors, Time Out, The Wall Street Journal, John Murray and Levis.

Aside from commissioned illustration, Anna’s work has been exhibited at a range of international galleries and museums, for instance at The Queens Museum of Art in New York, Q-Box gallery in Athens, The Chelsea Arts Club in London and OED gallery in Cochin, India. Anna is also interested in the process of collaboration and has taken part in a number of projects with other artists and writers. In 2007 she worked with two painters in New York to produce a series of 18 large collaborative paintings for a show at Exit Art in Manhattan. Last year she began a collaboration with printmaker Sue Corke which explores the human genome project.

Since 2006 Anna has been a regular visiting lecturer on a number courses, most recently at the University of Westminster ( BA Illustration), Central Saint Martins ( MA Illustration), University College Falmouth ( MA Authorial Practise), Camberwell College of Arts ( MA Illustration) and Winchester School of Art ( BA Graphic Arts).

Current Research

An ongoing body of work called, ‘Dissection’, takes as a starting point the relationship between Indian mythology and ritual art and eastern and western anatomical diagrams and medical illustration from various historical periods. Anna is interested in the idea that microscopic processes in the body relate to macroscopic processes of creation and dissolution present in mythology as well as the relationship between anatomical diagram and ritual iconography. Her work explores the notion that the body is both deeply intimate and tied in with our perception of self, at the same time it is an unknown world, mysterious, impersonal and unfamiliar. She is interested in the role of subjectivity in medical illustration and asks whether imagination, narrative and allegory have a role to play within the scientific representation of data.

Principal Publications and/or Exhibitions

Publications:

The Bhagavad Gita
The Folio Society, August 2011

Rhymes for Ranga
Random House India, August 2010

Midnight’s Children
The Folio Society, 2009

The Birthday Book
Jonathon Cape, November 2008

Pictures and Words: New Comic Art and Narrative Illustration
Laurence King, September 2005

The Perfect Digital Portfolio
AVA Publishing, April 2003

Selected Group Exhibitions:

AOI Images 34
London College of Communication, London, September 2010

A Delicate Point
Osilas Gallery, New York, February 2010

L-Machines
Gallery OED, Cochin, India, November 2009

Anomolies
Rossi and Rossi, London June 2009

Wonder What the Others are Up To
Gallery OED, Cochin, India, April 2009

Convulsive Illustration
Market Gallery, Glasgow, November 2007

Sultana’s Dream
Exit Art, New York, August 2007

Erasing Borders
The Queen’s Museum of Art, Flushing, New York, February 2007

The Artist’s Book
QBOX Gallery, Athens, Greece, November 2005

Poem as Image
The Studio Gallery, New York, September 2005

Pictures and Words
Magma gallery, London, September 2005

Sargam
New York University, New York, April 2005

Fatal Love
The Queen’s Museum of Art, Flushing, New York, February 2005

Enter the Lions Den
Circus gallery, London, August 2004

Ambit
Chelsea Arts Club, London, August 2004

Awards:

First Prize, The RCA Quentin Blake Illustration Prize for Narrative Illustration 2004

The Worshipful Company of Painter Stainers, two year scholarship, 2002-2004

First Prize, The RCA Folio Society Book Illustration Awards, 2003

Conferences:

Shadow Play Illustration Symposium
University of Cardiff, November 2010

The Untamed Tiger Illustration Open Forum
University College Falmouth, March 2010

Collaborative Practice in Illustration Open Forum
University College Falmouth, March 2005