STUDY TASK 2: Inspiring Illustrators (Belanorqua)

Belanorqua

I'm sure I've mentioned Belanorqua's work several times before because I am utterly enchanted by their textile dolls. Belanorqua is a team of two dollmakers from Poland: Norka and Biel. Their social media pages are very popular, which is where they post their images to be seen online.

There's not much information about them available - they are a very mysterious force, calling themselves 'human minks'. This is all part of their artistic presence, an enigmatic signature which involves never crediting their full names or giving much information away. They post pictures, often without captions, so the viewers are left to interpret the photos alone.

Belanorqua's approach to mysterious authorship in their promotion suits the tone of their work, since their art dolls and scenes harbour mystical tones and magical themes.

Their process of dollmaking features embroidery, propmaking and photography.

They do sell their dolls as products but their finished photos involve a lot more than just the dolls - using nature, cats, flowers, etc. to capture eerie and enigmatic shots of the dolls in our world.

Purpose: Their dolls are sold as products, so they are intended as art dolls/objects/collectables. The photos they post online have two purposes, the primary is to promote their doll products, and the secondary purpose is to tell stories with these figures. The photos only tell stories as a by-product of promoting the dolls, to demonstrate the artistry in their construction, but these photos are what interests me most, how the dolls can be posed and interact with environments as physical illustrations/static puppets. The photos and dolls feature themes of nature and magic but it is not immediately obvious whether Belanorqua is making an explicit comment/message.

Audience: Their audience is consumers, users of Etsy. Doll or art collectors. Likely to be female adults aged 25-35. 

Context: Belanorqua's dolls are sold as products online through Etsy. They exist as photos on social media and are sometimes featured in art magazines. I would be interested to see how Belanorqua could extend this practice and apply their illustrations to wider contexts, such as book illustration, greetings cards, tarot cards or as stop-motion puppets for animation.

Inspiration: Belanorqua is inspired by other dollmakers Pantalova and The Pale Rook who also sell dolls online via Etsy. They use found materials from nature, including feathers, bones, rocks, leaves and moss.