Jonas Taul (1986) is a picture book author, illustrator and visual artist. He graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam in audio-visual art and studied animation at the Estonian Academy of Art.
A Serious Thought is the authorās debut, which received immediate international acclaim after being published in Estonia and has already been translated into several other languages. Taul is intrigued by existential topics and visual storytelling. Readers are enchanted by his sensitive, delicate, minimalist black-and-white illustrations that are arranged to the point of perfection.
Since I was small I remember looking at films in foreign languages and at the pictures in books without reading the text. Through the visual language provided I would construct the stories of what they meant within my head. This was a very engaging and inspirational experience and as I would draw a lot myself as a child, I started to create my own stories and little books with paper and pen. Since then I have been creating art in many different formats, yet what has been prominent fascination is the language of visual storytelling that has bought me back to illustrating and writing children's books at an older age. I also firmly believe that creative work should never be limited to one format, it should mutate and unfold into other dimensions so that it can grow and flourish. At the moment I am exploring this by also adapting one of my books A Most Exquisite Man into a stop-motion animation film at Nukufilm studios.
Profile picture: private collection
Awards
2017The White Raven (
A Serious Thought)
20165 Best-Designed Estonian Childrenās Books, Certificate of Merit (
A Serious Thought)
Exhibitions
2021Exhibition of Baltic illustrators "Running with Wolves. Werewolf", Napoli, Rome, Frigento, Italy
2018ā2020 Exhibition of Baltic illustrators āRunning with Wolves. Werewolfā, London, the United Kingdom; Estonian Childrenās Literature Centre, Tallinn; GdaÅsk, WrocÅaw, BiaÅystok, Warsaw, PÅock, Szczecin, Poland; Pordenone, Italy; Vilnius, Lithuania
2018Exhibition of Estonian illustrators āRunning with Wolves. Werewolfā, Estonian Childrenās Literature Centre, Tallinn
Exhibition of Estonian illustrators āMasters of Estonian childrenās booksā/āPower of Picturesā in Russia: Krasnoarmeysk, Moscow
2017Biennial of Illustrations Bratislava (BIB), Slovakia
Tallinn Illustrations Triennial (TIT), Estonia
2015ā2016 Solo exhibition āA Most Exquisite Man and Other Animalsā, Viljandi, Tallinn, Haapsalu
