An interview with: Alice Bloomfield
- Jan 30
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 3
Astral speak with London based illustrator & filmmaker @bl00mfield
"Working across both traditional and digital mediums, the work of London based illustrator Alice Bloomfield embraces human emotion, sex, and love through illustrated and animated works. Alice’s linear, figurative style is reminiscent of manga with cool hues and rich compositions. Describing her art as “opulent, perturbing and sleazy”, Alice believes in exploring as many mediums as possible, adding to her extensive list of painting, music video, sets, commercial editorial, and digital projections." - rsafilms.com
Read on below for the full interview...
First of all how are you... are there any particular feelings captivating you in recent times?
I’m good thank you, definitely been feeling the winter rot and looking forward for spring sorting me out. I always get stuck in a bit of a rut over winter so its exciting to be making plans for the year ~ lots of lists and schemes in the works. Love not knowing where I’ll be, or what I’ll have achieved by December
We love that you cite 1970’s aesthetics, manga and anime as some of your creative influences. When did you first fall in love with illustration / animation, and are there any films or series that you hold close to your heart?
I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember but only really started animating on my Illustration BA course. I started small, just making 3 frame animated loops on Photoshop, which then led to bigger and more complicated experiments with the medium. I’ve always loved animation though. Growing up we had all the Studio Ghibli films at home, I remember watching Spirited Away for the first time and was so captivated by the level of detail in all the backgrounds. The level of world building is insane, you cant help but be drawn in and emotionally invested in it all.
Aside from that my favourites include Perfect Blue, Aeon Flux and Angel’s Egg, all have such strong visuals and use animation in a way that could never be recreated by live action, which is the point of animation really! The latter two also have quite dreamlike plots which are open to interpretation. It’s always really special when your’e allowed to take your own meaning from a film and interpret the visuals in a personal way, rather than being fed a single, predetermined explanation
Mysticality, fantasy and nature re-occur as motifs within your illustrations, what inspires you to explore these themes?
I think mysticality is just a lot more fun than reality! Most of my art is about a mood or atmosphere and its a lot easy to be emotive when you aren’t restrained by just drawing whats in front of you. Why draw someone looking sad in a boring room when they could be sad in a marble castle, surrounded by a raging swarm of insects ~ much more dramatic!
Let’s talk about ‘Larval’! Congratulations on the festival success! What motivated you to make this project and aside from the critical success, what are you most happy about reflecting on the process?
Thank you so much! This film actually came about as a bit of an escape. I wanted to start a personal project alongside the commercial work I was doing at the time, something that I could go all out with, ~without getting any client feedback or having to compromise my ideas in any way. The idea behind came from spending too much time on social media haha. Its about the feeling of always wanting more, comparing your life to people who seem richer/prettier/happier, and feeling inadequate in comparison. I wanted to reveal the reality behind that fantasy: how curated and constructed it all is, and how the people we envy aren’t necessarily living these perfect, blissful lives.. Being hot and rich doesn’t solve all your problems, even though we’re led to believe its the key to happiness.
What draws you to surrealism as a stylistic method? how inspired are you by dreams / ‘otherwordly’ experiences?
I like that surrealism lets me explore ideas without being too literal. The artwork can centre around emotions and symbolism, without being constrained by the logic of the real world. I always want things to seem real enough so that they’re relatable, but also not tied to a particular place. As if they could exist in a dream or parallel universe. As well as spaces, I also don’t really like my artwork to ever feel tied to a specific time. Even though I draw a lot of inspiration from the 70s and 90s, I deliberately leave out modern technology, as it immediately anchors the work to a particular moment. Once that happens, you lose some of the dreamy, otherworldly quality I’m trying to create.
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You can discover more of Alice Bloomfield's art via their:
- Astral Magazine
