She and Potter developed the “tiki in winter” event with chef Tessa Liebman, collaboratively bringing together a summer-tinged, multicourse meal with an illustrated menu and an atmosphere of tropical magic. The Polynesian-themed room just described is part of another personal project: a special, one-off dinner. Since graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 2007, Allsbrook has been building a body of sharply conceived editorial work while making comics with her constant collaborator, writer Barrie Potter. Whether she’s illustrating an article or creating an original comic, Allsbrook, 30, has an unmistakable and memorable style-immensely skilled brushwork combined with a saturated palette to communicate emotional power with intelligence. She briskly wields a large brush dipped in black acrylic, building a restless accumulation of lines.įor readers of the New York Times, The New Yorker, McSweeney’s and many other publications, those lines and their sense of pressing movement and vitality may be familiar. The illustrator responsible for this roomful of Bali Ha’i imagery, Wesley Allsbrook, is standing on the papered table, wearing white jeans, a white button-down shirt tied at the waist, and black-and-white striped socks without shoes. Rising up the back wall is a pointed mountain range surrounded by frenetic sweeps of paint-the swirling mists and tempestuous clouds of a seductive tropical fantasyland. Painted across the strips in sweeping brush strokes is a still-developing scene: painted waves that climb from the floor up the side of a paper-draped table a volcano and palm trees lush jungle leaves and vines. Round paper lanterns shine on a high-ceilinged room in which wide strips of newsprint are draped across every wall and floor. Through a wall of windows in a former warehouse, a glow of warmth and activity reaches the darkening pavement outside. On a bitterly cold February afternoon, the light is waning along a desolate stretch of Northern Boulevard in Queens.
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