This November sees the launch of Tourist Map Of Pyongyang (2019) — an intricately detailed hand-drawn panorama inspired by FULLER’s experience as an artist visiting North Korea’s capital. Based on two weeks spent walking through as much of Pyongyang as is possible for a tourist — accompanied by North Korean guides at all times; as per this one-party state’s strict rules for foreigners — FULLER’s Pyongyang pulls back the curtain on a city so routinely shrouded in mystery. His work is illustrative and graphical, the black ink creating a kaleidoscope of pictographs, architecture, patterns and cultural curiosities, all combining to create both literal and hidden narratives.

North Korea’s capital is one of the most-discussed but least-visited cities on Earth. And so FULLER’s work seeks to share the sensation of being there as a tourist — acknowledging the reality that his and our interaction as foreigners in such a tightly controlled place is certainly one with set limits. Those watching Pyongyang through the prism of network news will perhaps be drawn to FULLER’s images of familiar headline-grabbing sites such as Kim Il Sung Square and the pyramid-shaped Ryugyong Hotel.

But it’s the small details the artist discovered in person, and that he subsequently shares here, that will endlessly absorb audiences — whether they’ve been there themselves or not — alongside the stories of the city itself, home to millions of people, each with hopes, aspirations, desires, and dreams — universal traits that bind us all. “Hopefully Tourist Map Of Pyongyang encourages pause for thought, and a consideration of the city, minus the headlines, but with a view to its culture and people,” says FULLER. “If this work starts a conversation then it has served its purpose as art.”

It’s the latest piece in his ‘Purposeful Wanderings’ series: a 15-year-long artistic odyssey to document his understanding of the world through what he describes as “maps of the mind” — visual representations of the significant places he’s explored; FULLER uses archival pigmented ink on cotton board to tell stories about identity and culture while playing with our ideas of cartography, illustration and psychogeography.

More at www.fullermaps.com