Reportage Illustrator & Writer

Ian is co-author and illustrator of Martina and the Bridge of Time (www.panamartina.com).

Ian is a multicultural and multidisciplinary illustrator, visual journalist, and writer of weird fiction.  He has a wide breadth of interests, from cultural intersectionality to science communication, and Pre-Columbian art.

Ian takes particular interest in the effect environments have on individuals and culture both as a source of illustrative material and as inspiration for short stories. His work often appears as illustrations and sketches of a place and the people therein. In creating engaging visual records of mundanity often ignored, Ian aims to show that the lenses of normality often hides a true multiplicity and complexity to our every individual, collective and cultural action.

Ian joins the O’Dea Lab not just to document the day-to-day of scientific research, but find the multilayered relationships between researchers, their investigations, and the stories waiting to be told by the people in these tropical “paradises” we rarely ever hear from. By displaying these findings as information-rich illustrations, Ian aims to bring tropical sciences, folk knowledge and novel communication methods to a wider audience, both in his native Panama and around the world.