Joanna Concejo

Joanna: When the Korean publisher, BIR Publishing asked me to illustrate ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, I was so happy! For a long time, I'd wanted to work on it. It's not really my favourite fairy tale, but it's one that struck me and inspired me in my childhood.

When I was little, I found the Little Red Riding Hood character very stupid, and I didn't understand how she could find herself in such a complicated situation, when it would've been enough to just not stray from the path and obey her mother... But it's true that without all that, there would be no story. Later, I understood that the story was about many other things; my point of view shifted. But I was still unsatisfied with the illustrated books of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ that were on offer in bookstores. I didn't find in them what I felt and sensed. I wanted to offer ‘my story’ and now the opportunity had arisen.

I was really very fortunate, because the publisher gave me complete freedom and I didn't even have to make a storyboard beforehand.

From the beginning, it was clear to me that the forest in which the story takes place is itself also a ‘character’ in the book. I was born in Poland, in a forested region, full of rivers and lakes. I always imagined that Little Red Riding Hood lived in the vicinity... I love the forest, I feel good in it, and I wanted to show it as an important element in the story.

In the illustrations, I also put in many other elements straight out of my childhood in the countryside: Folk embroideries from the region of Kaszuby, which my grandmother taught me, my love for manual labour, plants, ambiance...

The work for this book took a very long time; some boards required several days to be drawn... but it was also the most exciting, happiest time. The ideas for the illustrations came relatively easily as the work progressed. I would say that the time spent drawing the fullest boards, sometimes tens of hours, allowed me to really immerse myself fully in the atmosphere of the tale, and other images would appear in my head. Everything connected, everything found its place. Like that red thread that runs through the story, the thread with which you play, you communicate, you find and you lose, you catch and you tie... the thread with which, in the embroidery at the end, Little Red Riding Hood tells her story.

During the work, I had only to be receptive to what was happening within myself as I drew... to be open to that flow that came from somewhere mysterious and beautiful.

When people ask me what I do, it's a little hard for me to answer. Because to just say that I am an illustrator is not really right for me. To say that I am an artist? That doesn't suit me. I think that I simply express certain things which dwell in me, which are important to me, which make my heart sing and make me feel alive. And I do it through drawing. I just draw.

This is the form that suits me. This is my language. It's built itself up from a number of drawings, of attempts, of erasures. It's precisely the erasures which make me understand so many things, that allow me to advance, to understand myself through hours spent getting as close as possible to what I want to express, hours spent drawing blades of grass in a meadow, long periods thinking about everything and about nothing, while my hand pursues a dream on the paper... whether it's raining, the wind blows or the sun shines, whether I'm feeling good or bad. This language is always in motion; it's endlessly happening, full of surprises and astonishments.

I've chosen the simplest materials: the graphite pencil, coloured pencils and a sheet of paper. I love to draw in pencil because there's something very intimate, sensitive, fragile and unsettling about it... The pencil traces every hesitation and every tremble of the hand. In a stroke of the pencil, the soul stands bare. It's unprotected, despite the mastery of technique. There is tension, and that pleases me. Between two failed lines, there is this third one, invisible, which is right. There's no use in drawing it. It's there, all the more present by its absence. It's the vibration between the other two lines.

I like to draw on old pieces of paper that I pick up all the time. I have lots of them at home. The pieces of paper that have already served, lived. That have traces of time, tears, stains, folds. Light has yellowed, or on the contrary, paled them... The papers that people have held in their hands, on which they have already written.

I like to inscribe myself in that continuum, in that journey through time; it inspires me, reassures me. While drawing, I have the feeling of doing no more than pulling out of the page that which is already there, even if it’s not visible. It’s as if the sheets are talking to me, showing me what they’re hiding. They’re more than a simple substrate; they welcome my drawings, make room for them, illuminate them with an inner glow, soft and mysterious. There’s sometimes a longing, a delight, a regret, an anxiety. I love when drawings grow restless, when they become insolent.

When I illustrate a book, I always think of writing it in another way, with imagery. I don't think of illustration as being in service to the text. It should never be. What's interesting is to create a dialogue between the text and the images, so that the two can, when meeting in the space of a book, tell something new and unexpected. They can open new pathways and new possibilities for interpretation. Let that meeting surprise, disturb, worry, question. I think this is possible only when the text and the images remain free and beautiful in their difference. When they are lovingly distinct. As two beings holding hands as they go together on their way. It's their meeting, their relationship which is beautiful. For me, the same goes in a book.

Illustrating ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ was a true inner journey for me. A walk in the unfathomable forest of my unconscious, a return to childhood, but at the same time an opportunity to offer my interpretation of the text. I was very fortunate to have had the full trust of the publisher.

Illustrations © Joanna Concejo. Post translated by Gengo and edited by dPICTUS.

Buy this picturebook

빨간 모자 /
Little Red Riding Hood

Joanna Concejo

BIR Publishing, Korea, 2015

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A little girl, her mother, her grandmother, a wolf and a hunter... The story of Little Red Riding Hood is well known throughout the world. It's been described in hundreds of different ways by hundreds of different authors and illustrators.

This new interpretation of the much-loved fairy tale is told with stunning pencil illustrations by Joanna Concejo.

• Korean: BIR Publishing
• Italian: Topipittori
• French: Éditions Notari
• Polish: Tako