Tara Deacon Illustrations

WORDS Cheri Morris IMAGES Tara Deacon


South African illustrator and designer Tara Deacon creates simple yet strikingly beautiful illustrations inspired by her love of nature. She works in watercolours, gouache, ink, graphite pencil and acrylic.

Currently based in Berlin, Tara discovered her love for artistic creation in her early years as a child inventor and later refined her child-like gadget-making skills when she studied Industrial and Product Design at the University of Johannesburg. Over the past two years, Tara has concentrated on illustration, working for prominent furniture designer Haldane Martin in Cape Town, The District Six Store in Berlin doing illustrations of fauna and flora, as well as for South African label Temple of Reason on illustrations for their 2016 Men’s Swimwear range. Tara also worked for Ogilvy One in Berlin on illustrations using coffee for Nescafé’s global campaign.

Her naive, playful style has garnered her a substantial following and she will be exhibiting her first solo illustration exhibition entitled It’s In My Naive Nature in Kreuzberg, Berlin until 26 November 2016. For more information, visit her website.