Joana Avillez is an illustrator born and raised in New York. She has done work for the likes of Penguin, Random House, Harper Collins, The Museum of Modern Art, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, The United Nations, The New York Times, The New Yorker and New York Magazine. Her work is beautiful, playful, poinginat and typically accompanied by text. I first became aware of Joana’s work through her illustrations in the New Yorker, specifically an article called Faces of February Decoded. I loved the expressive faces, beautifully drawn winter clothing, and the comical humanizing hand written blurbs. From that point I checked out Joana’s work and have been keeping up ever since.
I was lucky enough to photograph Joana for Agnes B. about a month ago. We went back and forth for a while to schedule an appointment at her home in Tribeca. Trying to schedule indoor shoots in New York during Covid is a tricky task but eventually we settled on a date! When I arrived we immediately hopped into conversation like we had known each other for years. We discussed our experiences during quarantine in New York. We both agreed that one of the most difficult results of quarantine to observe was the influx of homelessness and obvious lack of infrastructure to support this. We discussed what we could do personally to help. We connected on the difficulty of living with a significant other when space and movement is so limited. But, yet how grateful we are to have company and a creative endeavors to pursue and keep us busy.
Her apartment is a gorgeous open floor plan with art, unique furniture, and floor to ceiling bookshelves. She walked me through a bunch of her recents works which ranged from journals, to zines, to magazine articles, and even her first few drawings as a child. We talked about growing up in New York, Joana was raised in a fish market in downtown Manhattan. We connected on the fact that the neighborhoods we grew up in are nothing like the way they used to be. Both of her parents were artists and she discussed how being raised in a creative environment helped lead her to a creative career path.
It was an honor to photograph you in your home!