Communication Design School of Design

Joe Learmonth

I am interested in the worlds we create and choose to spend time in. The inside of our heads for instance, or the internet, or the fantasy realm of Dungeons & Dragons. I aim to portray issues of the real world through the lens of these imagined worlds. I try to get to the core of an idea using humour, which is a crucial element of my work. I think art is best when it gets you thinking by making you laugh.

Contact
jlearmonth@protonmail.com
joelearmonth.com
@ideal_joe
Projects
Goblin Portraits
A Look Into Headquarters
Job Interview
Cover Versions

Goblin Portraits

A series of ten-minute portraits of my friends, who are goblins.

A Look Into Headquarters

See the homunculi operate the efficient machine that is the modern human!

This work was inspired by the modernist concept of the body as a machine – a factory populated by tiny workers, operating machinery representing organs, glands, and biological processes. This idea was a reflection of the individual’s place within the industrialised society of the 1920s. So how does the machine body of the 2020s function? What are the little people doing inside our heads, with such a strange new workplace?

Job Interview

A goblin called Bogpax goes for a sales assistant job interview.

Cover Versions

This is an ongoing project in which I hijack book covers, drawing over them, hiding some areas and highlighting others, skewing the messages, recontextualising the information – creating ‘cover versions’ of their originals.

These are books that have been left in public book shares, often in exchange for charitable donations or other unwanted books. After I have graffitied the covers, I put the books back in the book share and continue the cycle.