Anja Dahle Øverbye (1981) is a cartoonist and illustrator, and has been a member of Tegnerforbundet since 2008. She illustrates both other people's stories and creates her own fanzines, comics and comic novels. Dahle Øverbye's first comic novel Hundedagar (Jippi forlag, 2015) won "Comic of the Year" at Oslo Comics Expo 2016. In addition to her own work, she runs the publishing house Blokk together with Ingrid Flognfeldt Brubaker, which publishes comics, fanzines and artist books.
In Dahle Øverbye's stories, difficult personal experiences from youth and adulthood are often depicted. The drawings are preferably made with soft pencil, which opens up a large scale of shades of grey. The visible modeling with the pencil brings the personal and often painful narratives even closer to the viewer, while the grimy expression in the drawings underlines the despondency of the stories. This, as well as the diverse descriptions of situations that are used in particular in Dahle Øverbye's latest comic book Bergen (Jippi forlag, 2018), and which have nothing directly to do with the narrative itself, can be reminiscent of cinematic storytelling techniques.
Anja Dahle Øverbye lives and works in Oslo. More information about Anja Dahle Øverbye here .
TF: Can you tell us a bit about your artistic work?
ADØ: I have primarily worked with comic novels since 2014. I have drawn all my life, but when I discovered comics, my work suddenly took on a completely new direction and meaning. I also work on larger works for exhibition, as well as some illustration assignments here and there, but it is comic novels that I always come back to. I always have a project going, and I'm currently working on my third comic novel. Creating comic novels can be quite a lengthy process, so it's nice to break up with other projects. At the bottom of everything I do is the drawing and the pencil.
TF: How do you use drawing in your work? Tell us a little about your work process.
ADØ: In the comic novels I always start with a fairly detailed manuscript. Then I start sketching and creating a storyboard. I do not outline the entire book at once, but preferably one chapter at a time. When I feel that the part fits, I start the drawing process itself. I first draw the motif with a faint line, before I start the actual drawing with a soft pencil and rubber. If I work well, I spend a working day on one page. But then I have to know exactly what will be in all the routes in advance. The process of such a book often takes a few years. Then it's fine to just draw "for fun" now and then, in completely different formats. I love to color with watercolour, and do so more and more. I intend to have some elements of that in my next comic novel as well.
I have also started to draw larger drawings. I exhibited at Møre og Romsdal Art Center last year, and then I made a couple of larger drawings to break with all the book originals that were exhibited. Here I mixed soft pencil with ink washes, and it was incredibly fun. In my books I always include larger landscape or environmental images, so in that sense these larger drawings are just a continuation of that work. I must also say, after working so much with books, that it is nice to work with individual images that are not supposed to "fit" into a book. Both when it comes to motif and format.
TF: What inspires you? Do you work from a theme?
ADØ: I often work based on slightly difficult topics and bad things that we humans have to deal with. I try to take these themes and make them universally valid, it should be something to identify with. I am inspired by details in people's lives, feelings and individual scenes. If I want inspiration for stories, dialogue and details in my books, I watch movies. If I want inspiration for drawing, I look in picture books or on Pinterest.
TF: What are you currently working on?
ADØ: Right now I'm juggling work on the script for my new book, working on a large pencil drawing that I hope to eventually exhibit, as well as editorial work at Blokk Forlag, which I help run. I'm also collecting a number of older diary drawings that I want to put together in a fanzine along with some more recent watercolours. But as the manuscript for the new book comes into place, work on it will intensify. I can't wait to start the actual drawing process on it.
TF: What does drawing mean to you/your work?
ADØ: Short and concise: Everything. Drawing is at the bottom of everything I do artistically. It is in the pencil that I feel most at home.
TF: Tell us a little about your work in the Tegnerforbundet's sales department!
ADØ: The two pictures are both taken from the exhibition I had during the Bjørnson Festival in Molde last year. I like to explore motifs where human figures are absent, but we can see the traces that man has left in the landscape. Both images have a kind of loneliness or "empty" air about them. It is probably both due to the motif, but also the technique itself with pencil and ink wash. The title of the exhibition was "Marbakken", and it plays on both the physical marbakken in the fjord, but also on the feeling we get when we go off the marbakken in life. The ground disappears beneath us, and we suddenly find ourselves gasping under water.
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Available works by Anja Dahle Øverbye in the online store.
