Illustrator Anna Steinberg’s reluctant boxing date and her illustrated take on the electricity of York Hall
‘I like the fact that sketches from life have an authenticity and are affected by everything going on in the moment’ a boxing novice and illustrator gives her view of York Hall.
What’s the weirdest date you have ever been on? Veteran illustrator Anna Steinberg was invited to a night of boxing at York Hall by a boyfriend on 27 February 2016. Not your usual sensual soiree, violence and romance can seem an odd couple.
A squeamish, unsporty Anna was dreading it but didn’t want to let down her boxing madman. That is until she decided to take her sketchbook along as a lens to record the evening.
Ta-daa it offered a shield, a sense of removal allowing her to absorb the evening as an artist and she quickly found her outlook changed and once she had arrived her preconceptions about boxing quickly dashed…
She said: ‘I thought it would be wild and rowdy, I’m not very sporty the whole thing was very alien. It didn’t seem riotous, the way it’s done is there are smaller fights and then it builds to the more spectacular fights.’
That is apart from the girlfriend of one of the fighters shouting ‘f***ing hit him’, having to be removed for her enthusiastic support.
She continued: ‘I don’t like violence and I was nervous of seeing people hit in the head but I liked the decorum of the fight, they’d be hitting each other and they then tapped gloves.’
Anna had doubts about the potential benefits of boxing for young people such as offering structure and mentorship in occasionally chaotic lives.
‘They could go from that wild hitting to that structural sportsmanship. I was impressed.’
The crowd was more subdued than she expected, populated by what seemed to her a peculiar crowd of onlookers. The mish-mash of locals, aficionados and family members ballooned with the volume as the night went on and the bigger names on the bill started exchanging blows.
Capturing the famed whiplash speed of the sport, and the crowd’s oscillating emotions proved a challenge, she continued: ‘It can feel exposing, drawing in public, and capturing movement is really tricky.
‘By the time the pen is on the page, something else is going on and I’ve learned that I mustn’t be deterred by that.
‘But I like the fact that sketches from life have an authenticity and are affected by everything going on in the moment.’
The following images contain some colourful language reflecting the spunk of the night and work through from the sketches scribbled on the night, with colour added later, to the finished piece:
Boxing at York Hall, Bethnal Green is available as a high-quality unframed giclée print on archival 290 gsm Hahnemühle Bamboo paper Signed limited edition of 35 510 x 737 mm Discounted price for orders before 30th November £170.00 inc p+p (Full price £255) Please direct message Anna via Instagram: annasteinbergillustrato
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