LA illustrator Langley Fox draws Wonderland – and her legion of fans – into a world of warped realities and childish fantasies this summer.
Taken from the Summer 2014 Issue of Wonderland Magazine:
“I think I’ve drawn every member of my family through the years. Some when I was younger so they may have not let me see their inner disgust,” jokes Los Angeles-based illustrator Langley Fox. Younger sister to Dree Hemingway; daughter or Mariel and great granddaughter of Ernest, Fox dropped the birth handle in favour of her middle, far more fantastical sounding name.
24-year-old Fox draws photorealistic portrayals of the saccharine but sinister: of a lithe girl smoking a daisy; of folk-inspired trinkets and cobwebbed bats; a boy forlornly bathing in a bowl of cereal. The imaginative and whimsical works have successfully wooed the fashion crowd, too: to date Fox has been commissioned by the likes of Marc Jacobs, Louis Vuitton, LOVE, Pamela Love, and L’Officiel Hommes.
“I think there’s a beautiful mystery to things that are slightly creepy or dark. It’s almost misconstrued that dark things mean evil,” explains the Parsons graduate. Fox continues, “I think it’s important to avoid judging things upon first glance, but being open to suggestion.” Fox has a couple of projects in the works, a few secret, but one she can discuss is her recent collaborations with San Clemente sock brand Stance, and the abstract illustration she drew and released as a t-shirt print for jewellery brand Elkin.
Having grown up mostly in Ketchum, Idaho, Fox took to drawing as a way to hide her timidity on film sets in Cuba, Canada, Panama and Ireland with her documentary filmmaker father, Stephen Crisman. Now, one of her drawings can take between two days to two weeks to finish and Fox admits she can sit for up to ten hours at a time during a session. “Sometimes I have a deadline where I have to pull an all-nighter and to battle the pain [the artist suffers cramps on the right side of her body]. I usually try to switch positions until I give in to taking Advil.”
Fox lives alone with her cat Jack Skellington (so named because of her love for Tim Burton) in the cracked pavement east side suburb of Silver Lake. She explains of her process, “I go through different stages of concentration. In the beginning I have to be paying full attention while I’m mapping everything out but once I start shading, my mind can wonder far and beyond anywhere I really ever wanted to go,” she explains. “I usually put on something in the background – shitty TV show or a documentary – to distract myself. It can be a very dangerous path to go down.”
Words: Emma Louise-Tovey
Photography: Blair Getz Mezibov
Fashion Editor: Ashley Furnival