A love of one club can bring out passions in you that can take a lifetime to discover. For one London based illustrator, it is their love of Spurs that has seen their work celebrate all areas of football lifestyle. Isobel Mehta's is an illustrator you can bet you're going to see a lot more of.
Born and raised in London, Isobel said "there wasn’t a lot of football talk in my household growing up." However, she was dedicated to painting and photography and spent her free time watching films and not sport. "I didn’t find football til I was 19". Then she found a love of Spurs...
We caught up with the illustrator to find out more behind them as an illustrator and what influences their creative output.
Cult Kits: First things first, You're a massive Spurs fan then...?
Isobel Mehta: Tottenham ’til I die.
CK: What's your earliest footballing memory?
Bel: Getting put in goal at a school football tournament, aged 10 wearing an eye patch (I had to wear an eye patch every day because of my lazy eye) and getting pelted with balls from all angles. I couldn’t save a single one.
CK: Tell us a bit about your illustration – it's style and origins
Bel: I never planned to be an illustrator, I was always more interested in film and photography, but there’s something very cathartic about drawing and colouring, I find it puts me in a very meditative state. As someone who loves problem solving, I think illustration suits me better than fine art practice, as I like to have a brief, to be challenged and to contribute to somebody else’s creative vision.
I’ve always used photography as a starting point, I take photos of people, plants, colours & textures, interiors and / or of use reference photography when starting a new piece. I collage them to create a composition which I’ll then draw on top.
"I live the football life everyday, even if Spurs aren’t playing. Being a Tottenham fan is probably the most potent part of my identity, more so than being an artist."
A couple years back I was keen to explore the dynamic between characters and natural environments. I love swamps, forests, volcanoes - all places I’ve never actually been to. I was keen to see how a narrative could be interpreted when bringing the outside inside, and started studying interiors from film sets and 20th century furniture catalogues to create new environments that are interrupted by natural forms. This is when I started putting crocodiles in the bedroom, snakes in the living room etc. My aim is to create a snapshot of a wider story, which is open to interpretation.
Over time I moved from drawing in Photoshop to drawing on an iPad with Procreate. This completely changed my practice as the advance in tools and technique changed the way I was storytelling. Now that I was able to draw with much more detail, I became more interested in ambience, textures, colours, light. Shadow,, and minute details I see around me, I started to crop in and make up close studies of people and nature, rather than frame them altogether in a broader composition.
I found that dressing my characters in relatable clothing (spurs kit!) was a helpful way to connect the work to the audience. I like to add a biographic element, if you look closely there are a lot of Son Heung-Min’s dotted around my pieces, cockerel tattoos on characters or 1882’s hidden in forest leaves.
CK: How long have you been an artist/illustrator
Bel: Professionally, about 7 years. But as it’s quite a solitary practice I like to offset it with a more social form of creative work, I’ve been an art agent and a creative producer at the heart of the commercial industry for 3 or so years now. I’ve worked across some really exciting football campaigns in this capacity, and it’s inspired me to make more football work in my own practice.
"Sometimes when I’m playing football I observe the physicality through a creative lens, like ‘what brush would I use to draw movement of the ball bouncing off this person’s head’."
CK: What makes you want to capture scenes of football and its culture?
Bel: I think it’s very much a ‘write what you know’ situation. I live the football life everyday, even if Spurs aren’t playing. Being a Tottenham fan is probably the most potent part of my identity, more so than being an artist. I uphold the values of the club, engage with my community, advocate for marginalised groups within the industry and local areas. It’s a very inspiring place to be, albeit challenging, and making illustrations is a way for me to meditate on this.
Sometimes when I’m playing football I observe the physicality through a creative lens, like ‘what brush would I use to draw movement of the ball bouncing off this person’s head’.
CK: Which artists/people influence or inspire your works?
Bel: When it comes to artists / painters - I am completely in awe of Jatinder Singh Durhailay, he’s a huge inspiration to me. I also love Brian Brown who captures subtle moments so beautifully. I think Ed Gray conjures such a very relatable atmosphere, a raw snapshot of London at its finest moments. As I said, photography fuels my work, and I have to say Flora Maclean’s and Raajadharshini’s photographs have a huge influence on my practice.
CK: Do you have any exciting collaborations coming up?
Bel: My very good friend and talented photographer Kirsten Allen, (who I met at Spurs) and I are planning to go through our archives of fan photos we’ve taken over the years. We’re going to make an edit, and then I’m going to create a series of artworks which capture the fan experience, true to life. I’m really excited about this one, because I’ll get to relive some of the best memories.
CK: Do you have a favourite piece of work?
Bel: Of my own? Nope, absolutely not. As soon as I’ve finished a piece of work I immediately dislike it. The process is definitely the rewarding part, not the outcome!
Of other people’s work - so many favourites, too many to choose.
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