Scrobb of Scrobbesbyrigscīr

 

I am an illustrator and storyteller, with a practice that encompasses a range of media
including craft, performance, film, poetry and ritual magic. I seek to conjure the strange otherworlds
of British myth and folk-lore; unearthing stories of giants, fairies, pagan Gods and the
funerary rites of woodland animals. Such wonderous forces enchant the landscape, psychology
and popular culture of Britain, and by re-interpreting these ideas through images
and artefacts I express contemporary concerns; describing my own personal experiences of
Autism, mental illness and my resultant alienation from the norms of society. My work is
intimately informed by the solace I find in exploring the haunted, liminal spaces that these
obscure narratives inhabit.

I paint primarily with watercolour, gouache and ink, and have illustrated many stories
from Shropshire, and broader British myth and tradition. These images have been self published
in books alongside my prose and poetry. Complementing my illustration, I craft
ritual artefacts and multi-media story-telling works, and I have developed performance and
video projects featuring my guise as a manic genius loci called Scrobb, after the Old English
name for Shropshire; ‘Scrobbesbyrigscir’. For the roots that bind me to the soil of the county,
and my passion for sharing its heritage, I have appropriated that name as my creative
alias; Joseph Scrobb.