Minna Pemberton is a 22 year old illustrator who recently graduated from Brighton University. Despite doing an Illustration degree, she told me she “doesn’t entirely identify with that title”. She’s spent most of her creative life being a bit jack-of-all-trades, pursuing animation, print-making, graphic design, textiles and 3D design. When she boils this all down, her “core-joy” is drawing, which she joked is “an alternative to writing sentimental poetry” in her diary. Within the last few months she has really delved into her niche – which by and large revolves around chairs.
Chairs are the humblest and most unappreciated item of furniture. One might even call them the backbone of modern society. Yet, chairs are consistently underappreciated, and merely sat all over. In an unwitting act of chair activism, Minna’s recent work champions the pinnacle of everyday furniture. Her graduation exhibition features many different designs, truly hitting diversity quotas when it comes to chair representation. “I’m Sat” features a cat chair, a cuddly chair, a skeletal chair and, my favourite, a “first-class playroom chair for children travelling by cruise ship”.
Her interest in chairs was spurred by their absence in her immediate environment. Her work allowed her to “vicariously own dream furniture”, whilst creating in her student home. Drawing inspiration from books, designers and exhibitions, she covets an expansive folder of favourite chairs collected over time. Her preferred designs are ones with “surreal forms and unique silhouettes”, and she said “collating them together in drawings was a really fulfilling way of seeing my interests reflected back at me”. This allowed her to question what linked her designs together, whilst also expressing an incandescent love of chairs.
Despite her expertise in this area, Minna’s inspiration extends further. She said “I’m influenced a lot by storytelling and music, podcasts about folklore, science and history, or just funny concepts my friends and I come up with”. A lot of her illustrations feature themes of birds and space, which can be seen in her drawing of swans migrating to the moon. Ultimately, she told me her biggest inspiration at university was “being around creative people”, and this vibrant community of artists recently showcased their individual niches. Minna took her coursemates under her wing when she helped organise and fundraise their graduation exhibition. She said “it was a lot of work and definitely took more preparation than we all anticipated, but the amount of support our work received was overwhelming”. They had shows in both Brighton and London, and Minna feels incredibly grateful towards everyone who visited.
Now she’s out in the world Minna has full creative freedom, and she is relieved to be “free from the worries of grades”. Come September, she’s starting an internship in brand design, and is “looking forward to being in London amongst the opportunities a big creative city brings”. Being in a bustling creative community charges her, and inspires the designs she strives to create.
However, this is not to say she isn’t tempted by the quiet life from time to time. She said “last summer I visited Copenhagen for midsummer and completely fell in love with the city. There’s something so pleasing about the Scandinavian way of life; they’re very well-known for their design expertise (especially in the realm of chairs)”. Her dream is to be an artist there, cycling around and swimming in the canal. She admits she has “the urge to try everything”, and struggles to pick just one lifestyle for herself. For now, she’s settling for the streets of London, and looks forward to more acts of artistic activism. Whether that be through independent art collectives or multi-disciplinary artworks, Minna hopes to “use creativity as a powerful social tool”.
Instagram: @min.pem.draws
