2s, 3s & 4s is the first London solo exhibition of Natsko Seki, an established freelance illustrator known for her bright and playful style. For Seki, each project is an opportunity to take up a challenge and discover more – experimenting with new techniques in the pursuit of a new language. Exploring the role of the narrative in her artwork is her most recent obsession and is at the core of her work in this show.

Comparison, a process which encourages you to search for similarities and differences in equal measure, is central to Seki’s practice. Her work is focused on discovering analogies and correlations between things made in different times and places, and different countries, cultures, colour combinations, costumes and buildings.

In this new series of work, viewers will find themselves actively comparing images as they are repeated and varied. Through this process, Seki is challenging the viewers to interpret the illustrations and their varying contexts, in order to become storytellers themselves. Drawing viewers into her works, Natsko Seki creates a world where the differences in things have whimsical harmony as well as rhythmical contrasts.

Natsko Seki (b. in Kochi, 1976) studied educational psychology at Keio University in Tokyo before moving to the UK. She graduated with a B.A. Illustration (Hons) from University of Brighton in 2005, and made her way to London where she now works on an increasing number of worldwide commissions.

She focuses her field of work on travel-related illustrations and children’s books, which are some of her most recent projects. Inspired by architecture and people from different ages and cultures, Seki often integrates personal elements into her illustrations, for example by collaging her own photographs of family friends into her works.

Her clients have included: Phaidon Press, Louis Vuitton, Hermès, Transport for London, London Transport Museum, The Guardian, The New York Times, Bloomsbury Publishing, Random House, Royal Society of Arts, Historic Royal Palaces, Seoul Metropolitan Government, BBC, Toyota, Takashimaya, Fukuinkan Shoten Publishers, and more.