“I love love”: Charlotte Winkler’s comics are all about care, connection and belonging

Illustrator and author Charlotte Winkler’s work sits somewhere between painting, drawing, writing and comic making. The artist often explores the connection between critical theory and visual storytelling, such as in her latest book Like a Mad Gardener. Published by Colorama, this beautiful new artist book features a collection of essays and comics on the politics and particularities of what it means to garden, from graphic stories about land and borders to power, care and belonging. It also brings together all kinds of illustrated characters: Charlotte’s cosy caterpillars, spiky palm trees and angels that guard fences and are all wrapped in the warm fuzzy grain of its Risograph printed pages, adding a painterly and dream-like appearance to the story.

“I seek to intertwine the poetic and the strange with philosophical and social questions concerning conflict, care and connection in my work,” Charlotte says. For the subjects she explores, the illustrator finds inspiration in all sorts of things from everyday life: “small interactions that reveal something human and real, the strangeness and beauty of nature, the funny ways in which language works, books, gardens, love in all its forms (I love love), and people with quirks that might give me an idea for a character,” she says. The writer’s pocket-sized publication Tenderness I found in a bag explores the subject of love and longing through a series of miniature zines, bumper style stickers and postcards that all come together to make what she likes to call A lovergirl collection.

As well as exploring connection through her drawing practice – pushing materials such as pastels, crayons, acrylic and pencils around on linen and paper – the artist says she has recently been inspired by a range of writers such as Siri Hustvedt, Ursula K Le Guin and Donna Jeanne Haraway. She is reclaiming words as a key part of her process, just as much as images. “I am discovering writing as a tool that can be at once precise and analytical, as well as playful and fun,” Charlotte concludes.