Pimping my 4 BSFA Award 'Best Artwork' nominations for 2010

[peteryoung]

It's that time of year to nominate!

Under the cut are what I consider to be four excellent examples of science fiction illustration that I'm nominating for the 2010 BSFA 'Best Artwork' Award, with some commentary on each. I take this award a little more seriously than the other categories because I'm of the certain opinion that in recent years it has needed a bit of a push. I may write about my reasons for saying this after this year's Awards.

This year I'm nominating four illustrations, a mixture of professional, semi-pro and amateur artists; I am certain the two book cover images appeared for the first time in 2010 although of course I'm less sure about the histories of the other two works. Also, it was a conscious decision this year to have a 50/50 split between dynamic imagery and more static imagery. I should also mention that I don't know any of the artists personally (although I did exhibit alongside Dominic Harman at Concourse in 2004), so it's not as if I'm pimping for friends.

Please go ahead and nominate artwork of your own choice – and indeed books, short stories and non-fiction – because the more people who take part by nominating and voting, the more fun it becomes. The current list of nominees so far can be found here, and of course you can also nominate something that has already been nominated – indeed this is how nominees make it from the longlist to the shortlist. The ground rules are here, and the nomination deadline is midnight on January 14th 2011.




Ben Greene, 'A Deafened Plea for Peace', Crossed Genres #21, July 2010.My imagination can build a whole world around this very dynamic image with its evocative title. The colour is vibrant and antagonistic, reflecting the subject matter itself, and yet I also find this such a joyous image to look at with its very brave and unconventional composition. A closer look reveals the texturing to be quite simple, but there's enough going on here to hold my attention more than adequately. Quite stunning, IMHO.




Dominic Harman, cover for Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, Gollancz, 2010.This is the cover that Cat's Cradle has needed all along. Dominic's design is almost literally 'in your face', gritty and rather dangerous – and of course green, often believed to be a colour that publishers avoid on their covers (not that that's ever bothered the art department at Gollancz recently). This cover made me part with money for a book I already owned, which is the whole point.




Rodrigo Ramos, 'The Biomarket', Clarkesworld #44, May 2010.When I first clapped eyes on this I thought it's one of the clearest dystopian visual images I've seen recently, and it also doesn't need to explain itself but I'll have a go anyway: it depicts a human society that has become entirely inhuman, and tells you all you may ever desire to know about this dark future with a simple, static composition. I have no need to know if it was done to illustrate a particular story as this is a world I can already imagine in its entirety, without any need for words.




Jon Sullivan, cover for Neal Asher's The Voyage of the Sable Keech, Tor UK, 2010.This is one of those on-the-edge illustrations, pushed as far as it can go to stop just this side of cliché, and therefore works wonderfully. It's also broodingly atmospheric and suitably over-the-top to illustrate the manic imagination of Neal Asher, whose various alien fauna are all fantastically thought out – the Mephistophelean creatures here also find a home working as sails on ships. I didn't have to think much before nominating this illustration, it draws you into Asher's world by shouting so loud that it does all the talking for me, and I really needn't add anything else.

Comments

[jamesb.livejournal.com]

Good choices.
I thought Dominic had done better this year but that's a IMHO.

[reverendjim.livejournal.com]

Hm, my very first impression from that third one was quite different; there was almost an idea that he was cradling the "child". In a world that was so fucked that you couldn't even expose yourself to it "humanity" was still there. That sort of thing.
But I suspect you're right. And really the position is too low for cradling and it's just putting on/off the shelf. But just goes to show how first impressions can differ.

[peteyoung.livejournal.com]

But you're right, it can be more ambiguous if you see the image without the title, 'The Biomarket'.

A pity this one didn't make the shortlist too, but 2 out of 4 ain't bad. :)