ESCAPE
This illustration shows a character trying to escape from different rooms, looking for the Utopia. Those rooms represent a series of natural and man-made disasters that occurred in 2020, such as COVID-19, locust plagues, forest fires, floods, and earthquakes. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected people’s lives badly, with limited flights, travel bans, social distancing and many others. Meanwhile, we also see people from different places in the world to treat Coronavirus differently.These disasters have made people overwhelmed. We want to escape from that chaos to find the Utopia.
The pandemics will disappear eventually, the sun will rise again. From recent good news about the coming Covid-19 vaccines, the dawn seems not far away.
I hope this piece will also warn us to think about the relationship between human and nature, how to balance our ecosystem and protect our home—Earth.
Press
Creative Boom “Surreal illustrations by Simo Liu of 'disaster rooms' that we hope to escape from”
Collater.al “ESCAPE, the illustrated project on 2020 by Simo Liu”
Picame “Escape: la serie illustrata di Simo Liu per infondere speranza dopo un anno disastroso”
Yourokubu Magazine 'Escape', illustrations about the coronavirus with echoes of 'Parasites'
MindSparkle Mag “Escape”
OSSO Magazine “ILLUSTRAZIONE: Escape | Simo Liu”
Moss and Fog “Simo Liu’s Editorial-Style Illustration Relives the Chaos of 2020”
Dpi.media “一起逃離疫情生活吧！美國插畫藝術家Simo Liu以幾何明亮線條回顧2020光景”
Mâché Magazine “Escape” by Simo Liu
Awards
D&AD Awards 2021 Next Pencil Winner/ Next Illustrator
The Cheltenham Illustration Awards 2021 Emerging and Established Awards
Society of Illustrator Selected into the Society of Illustrator 63 Annual and Exhibition
3X3 Illustration Annual No.18 Merit
World Illustration Award 2021 Longlist
iJUNGLE Illustration Award Merit and selected into the annual of iJUNGLE Illustration Award 2020
Hiii Illustration 2020 Merit
Creative Quarterly 62 Runner Up and Creative Quarterly 62 online Gallery
IDEA
This illustration is my reaction to the year 2020. “Escape” was my feeling to the unknown and invisible enemy with stress, fear and panic. It is also an instinct reaction when suffering from disasters.
To make the illustration “Escape”, my inspiration came from the film “Parasite” as well as M.C. Escher’s paintings. From “Parasite”, the living room and basement were two different spaces, and the people who lived in the basement were very hard to move to the “upper level” space. M.C. Escher’s paintings also show some contradictory spaces, which are extremely difficult to escape from. From those inspirations, I composed my drawing with nine different spaces, eight individual difficulties and one hope—the Utopia. Even though we are suffering from so many difficulties during this year, there is always a light in the darkness.
I tried to carry the message about coronavirus via my illustration “ Escape” to reflect the world of the difficulties brought about by the pandemic and how to lighten the difficult times. Also, I hope this piece will warn us to think about the relationship between human and nature, how to balance our ecosystem and protect our home—Earth.
