Artist and Designer Kenneth Gerleve with Jamie Thome

On 14 May, 2020, we visited artist and designer, and ABH board member, Ken Gerleve uses narrative and image to tell stories, which are often darkly humorous. His artwork juxtaposes the traditional elements of the Gothic with contemporary culture. This can take the form of an illustrated book of original verse narrative, animation, puppet building and performance, or installation. He often uses Scherenschnitte, or paper-cutting, and dimensional book structures, like Tunnel and Carousel books, to create sculptural scenes reminiscent of the silhouette animations of Lotte Reiniger.

We checked out Ken's basement studio space and  discussed how narrative can shift between art forms, idea generation, and making art in the time of COVID.