About

Soundpapered is the work of Rachel Abrams, British-American illustrator-at-large, award-winning designer and educator. Drawing musicians at live alt jazz, hip hop, neo-soul shows, Soundpapered began out of nowhere at the first Art of Cool festival in Durham, North Carolina, and has since been focused on live shows in New York, Los Angeles and London. It is, pandemic-shambles permitting, ongoing. Follow Soundpapered on Instagram for frequent updates.

This site showcases selected original drawings and animations, highlights from commissioned projects, exhibitions and public installations of the work. The Soundpapered ‘album’, a book of the entire project, is in the works.

Press

1/2022 | The Checkout | WBGO radio | 1/15/22 (at around 9’00”) | Simon Rentner spreads the word to listeners about the Soundpapered x Link NYC collaboration, Art on Link, in the run up to the 2022 New York Winter Jazz Festival.

6/2018 | The Art of Watching Live Music | EZH magazine | Nina Fine of the UK’s Women in Jazz wrote this thoughtful, funny interview, calling Soundpapered a movement, no less. The original magazine is offline but the full piece is still available to read at the link above, as a pdf.

4/2015 | …From Piano to Page | Okayplayer | Scott Heins‘ glowing profile featured a gallery of sketches and a short film by Yvonne Jukes: Watch Soundpapered live drawing the Robert Glasper Trio at the Village Vanguard, on the day the band announced their new album, Covered. The feature was published that spring to coincide with the album’s pre-release on iTunes, with the film attracting over 10,000 views.

Strategic drawing

Drawing live from 9-5 in regular daylight hours, Rachel’s strategic drawing assignments include projects for Amnesty International, the Museum of Modern Art, the Municipal Arts Society, UK National Film and Television Awards, Next City, the Open Society Foundations, the Rockefeller Foundation, the United Nations 70th General Assembly, and municipal agencies, global architects, medics and various Fortune 50 execs. Between 2007-09, Rachel taught in the ITP program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and between 2009-21, at the School of Visual Arts, most recently teaching “Society Needs to See”, a class focused on drawing for designers in the Products of Design MFA program. She has a drawing diploma from Scriberia (2020), is a fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts, and a graduate of the Royal College of Art, London.

The fine print

• Depictions of individuals (the “Drawings”) featured on this Soundpapered web site (the “Project”) do not represent any endorsement of the Drawings or of the Project by those individuals.
• Rights to music featured in any animations/videos belongs to that music’s composer, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
• If you or your organization would like to use any of the original content here for a) non-commercial purposes, please credit Soundpapered b) commercial purposes, please contact Soundpapered by email for permission and licensing terms.
• The image on the home page varies from time to time. The black and white photo of hands sketching is courtesy of whitsittphoto.com