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People and Places Become One in Mesmerizing Portraits Drawn on Maps

By Margherita Cole on January 15, 2023

Whether you're from a city or a small coastal town, the location of your home has a major impact on your life. Artist Ed Fairburn highlights the relationship between people and places through his ongoing series of drawings made on vintage maps. He uses his masterful skills to merge human portraits with the existing layout of towns and cities, seamlessly expressing the way in which our environment shapes who we are.

Each of these unique illustrations is hand-drawn on maps from Fairburn's own collection, and sometimes on maps that he finds specifically for a project. Then, Fairburn uses a pen to slowly sketch a face onto the piece of cartography, navigating the pre-existing marks to unite the portrait in a natural way. Through hatches and cross-hatching, he creates faces that look as though they were always meant to be there—as though their resemblance was printed underneath the mapping of the particular location.

Fairburn uses a range of different maps in his art. Many of them depict well-known towns and cities in Europe. However, he has also expanded his series to include trench maps as well as topographical ones and even cartography of space. In each of these cases, the individual is expressed in such a way that is natural to the original map—including the style and level of detail involved.

You can purchase available original art and limited edition prints via Fairburn's online store, and keep up to date with his latest projects by following him on Instagram.