Anita King and the Runaways
This post started out as a straight profile with one of our Runaway artists, Anita King. Also my sister-in-law. Anita recently designed a couple of pieces for us that are exclusive to The Mini Edit (UK) and Kookies and Milk (Singapore) and we wanted to show you why and how the range came about.
I got halfway through the piece, then realised that despite having produced a mountain of unbiased, factual copy over the past few decades, I simply couldn’t do an objective profile of Anita King. Frankly, it sounded more like an open love letter than an artist profile. So I abandoned my attempts at objectivity and just wrote. I think I can do that, this being a blog and all.
Anita grew up in rural Victoria, Australia. Deciding against a career in either surfing or engineering (her joke, I can’t take credit), Anita set out into the world of fashion and design in Melbourne, then London.
After a couple of decades of making awesome stuff and working with some pretty great people, Anita found herself living in downtown Manhattan, working in arts management and getting into collage. Her early work was typically abstract, but at some point she found herself cutting and pasting landscapes. They were colourful, wild and beautiful.
Though she’d spent most of her childhood plotting to get to the city, nature was in her blood. There was precious little of it in downtown Manhattan, so collage became her way of maintaining a connection with the natural environment. After a year or thereabouts of collage, Anita started painting. Different medium, same subject matter. This girl was prolific. She trotted out fifty of the little darlings in the first six months, capturing the minimal essence of places she loved and wanted to visit. Like the Sahara.
And the Joshua Tree National Park.
It was love at first sight for me and this series, and thankfully the other chief Runaway was just as keen. Our first run of the landscapes - The Grampians (below), Joshua Tree and Scottish Highlands - was digitally printed on baby nightgowns and long sleeve tees. We really liked them, but more importantly, the little Runaways were huge fans.
When we started talking to the Mini Edit, the UK’s newest fashion portal for kids, we knew Anita’s pieces would be a perfect fit. So Anita got to work and we pitched some original designs. The Mini Edit decided on Mount Fuji and Corsica, two of our own favourites. While we loved the first run of digitally printed landscapes, we were really excited about screenprinting the landscapes to achieve denser colour and a longer lasting print. We’re obviously incredibly biased, but we’re so happy with the latest designs, seen here on our little mate Ren Moore.
No matter how many Anita produces, I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of this series. Some evoke a serious sense of nostalgia for me, given that we share so many favourite places. Some make me want to visit places I’ve never been. All of them make me feel an unexpected sense of serenity. I fear that the landscape project may take a bit of a back seat in 2016, as Anita’s newest creation - a human baby - is due to arrive in a couple of months. Of course, we’re dying to meet out little nephew (my first!) and cousin. But I do hope the landscapes won’t be left behind. There are so many more beautiful places to paint, and I’d hate to miss Anita King’s take on them.