Jamie Hewlett climate change exhibition

Jamie Hewlett – the artist behind Tank Girl and Gorillaz – visited Bangladesh with Oxfam, to see for himself how climate change is already costing lives.

The experience inspired a series of watercolours, limited edition prints of which are now available to buy in aid of our work in Bangladesh and Nepal.

They will also be showing in an exhibition in Birmingham from Monday 23 to Sunday 29 November at The Artlounge, 28-30 Wharfside Street, The Mailbox, Birmingham B1 1RD.

Click on the thumbnails below to see the images and find out more about Jamie's trip.

Click for larger image. [Photo credit: Bashir Ahmed Sujan]

Here Jamie is seen talking to Nargis in her home in Char Atra, Bangladesh.
Jamie: "I didn't do any painting there because the schedule was very busy and it was extremely hot. Instead I took a lot of photographs and wrote down lots of ideas, then drew these pictures from all the stuff I had collected."
"It’s quite difficult to illustrate these issues. I had a list of things I wanted to cover but you can't show it in pictures really. The fact that women find it harder to swim because of their saris and children being washed away in the river – it isn't easy or appropriate to draw."
Photo: Bashir Ahmed Sujan

Click for larger image. [Photo credit: Jamie Hewlett]

"This is one of my little friends [Zahid Hossain, aged 5], looking up at the sky wondering when the rains will come."
Buy this image from Oxfam's Online Shop
Image: Jamie Hewlett

Click for larger image. [Image credit: Jamie Hewlett]

"This shows the kids up in the trees, which for many of them is the safest place to go during the floods – gathering some food rations to keep them going and climbing up, staying there for as long as they can."
Buy this image from Oxfam's Online Shop
Image: Jamie Hewlett

“We followed these two girls in the village looking happy and smiling. The children always looked so innocent. I wanted to portray the next generation and their future in an optimistic but realistic way – and show what a beautiful place Char Atra is.
"I think many people have sadly become numb (or immune) to footage of dying children. If people can relate to a picture, then it can sometimes have more of an impact. Showing two children being playful, walking down a path with their arms around each other is a connection that people here in the UK might understand from their own or their children’s experiences."
Buy this image from Oxfam's Online Shop
Image: Jamie Hewlett

"This is one of the stacks that we saw which shows how the villagers store their crops. It’s built up on a platform so the water doesn’t wash it away. It’s attached to an old tree and on top of the mound they have netting which is fastened so it all stays intact."
Image: Jamie Hewlett

"This is a picture of a beautiful little girl who looks like Mowgli from the Jungle Book."
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Image: Jamie Hewlett

"This is the river erosion, showing how the bank has almost been sliced away. You can see the men folk looking at us on our boat – watching us quizzically as to who we are. I liked the idea of putting the paintings on paper and envelopes that were a bit dog-eared, as if they had been dropped in a puddle."
Buy this image from Oxfam's Online Shop
Image: Jamie Hewlett

"This is in Dhaka where most people’s transport is the rickshaw. It seemed the right thing to draw really, cycling through the floods. Of course, there weren’t floods there then - artistic license."
Buy this image from Oxfam's Online Shop
Image: Jamie Hewlett

"This is one of my little friends [Zahid Hossain, aged 5], looking up at the sky wondering when the rains will come."
Image: Jamie Hewlett

"This is another crop store. It looked like it would be able to withstand the flood. The people don’t have much to work with, so this is quite ingenious. They just raise it up above what they think the flood level is."
Image: Jamie Hewlett