EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 16 © 2016 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

35 Paul Slater Enter into a world of nonsense courtesy of this incredible and zany artist as Diego Cordoba guides us through Paul Slater's life’s work Does humour belong in art? For someone like Paul Slater, the answer is a resounding yes. The absurdity depicted in his paintings, bordering on the irrational, have many considering him a surrealist painter. Although he doesn’t consider himself a surrealist at all, albeit admiring the work of both Magritte and Dalí, he prefers instead to use what in the British tradition is considered “nonsense”. He believes that word best describes his work, something that can be attributed to a typical form of British humour that would include not only Slater’s paintings but the work of Lewis Carroll and the Victorian poet and painter Edward Lear. “I used to describe my paintings as ‘Sardonic Tomfoolery’, which was both apt and pretentious in equal measure. However, after further introspection I decided that the term ‘Wilfully Mischievous’, would be more appropriate,” Paul says. It should also be noted that the masterful way in which he renders his paintings, with a special attention to detail, brings to mind the great master illustrators from the early part of the 20th century. In fact, for those not familiar with his work (anyone living outside Great Britain) you might believe he was one of those long- forgotten master illustrators from the Edwardian era who probably also lived and worked between the two great wars of the past century. Indeed, his paintings have that old-fashioned flair of an illustration done in those bygone years (usually in what’s now considered the heyday of the illustration field). His paintings wouldn’t seem out of place as a cover on the illustrious Saturday Evening Post magazine, if it weren’t for its undeniable Britishness and the fact that he was born much later. Text continues on page 38 FACING PAGE: First acrylic painting , acrylic on paper, 20” x 15” (1975). Done while still a student at the RCA, it took Paul several months to finish. “It looks a bit crude to me now but I still love it.” LEFT: Photograph of the artist out in the fields with the painting Practical Nudity in 2002.