Noma Bar’s Negative Space Illustrations
by Maria PopovaWhat hippies have to do with Wall Street, Iraq and the Little Red Riding Hood.
We’ve been longtime fans of Israeli illustrator Noma Bar, whose mastery of negative space — the space between and around the subjects of an image, which can frame another subject in and of itself — never ceases to amaze, adding a new layer of thoughtfulness to the classic figure-ground illusion of perception. As he recently redesigned a handful of Don DeLillo classics for Picador Books, we were reminded of our favorite Noma Bar classic: Negative Space — an anthology of Bar’s most compelling work from various high-profile magazines, commenting on some of today’s most pressing sociopolitical issues with the artist’s signature provocative subtlety.
A sneak peek of the book follows, but we highly recommend you indulge in its entirety — it’s a rare tapas bar of brain food and eye candy.
Beware The Wolves: Artwork for an article on older men who pursue younger women
Fat Cat: Artwork for an article on how CEOs invest their personal wealth
The Big Squeeze: Artwork for an article on the oil politics behind the Iraq war
Artwork for a piece on gun crime and violence
When Doves Cry: Mourning the loss of the hippy dream with white doves and a VW van
Thought-provoking and visually stunning, Negative Space is the kind of blend of aesthetics and ethics we’d like to see more of in the world.
Images courtesy of Creative Review
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