“Folk-art meeting with contemporary flat graphic (light texture), with sharp shapes and hand-drawn lines”
I am an illustrator and digital artist based in France, inspired by botanical nature, landscape and portraits which, as static as they might appear at first sight, happen to provide a narrative and vivid imaginary world.
I love playing with colors and textures, transforming a drawing from a doodle book into a more accomplished work, exploring the back and forth between words and images – and making space for children’s creativity.
I create mixed, traditional and digital illustrations. My favorite process is to digitally apply sharply cut textures on my handmade drawings, while playing with layered transparencies. I am looking for an overall naive aspect, which in my opinion creates a poetic, childish atmosphere.
Pattern design
I create floral design for fabric, wall paper and home decor
After working as an illustrator, I became fascinated by the puzzle-like nature of surface pattern design.
In recent years I have developed and deepened a passion for traditional and contemporary surface patterns, and I have dedicated myself to researching recent and historical methods of creating these patterns up to the point that I could create my first collection called“green cathedral ”
I specialized in creating pattern design for sell and licensing and love to participate in collaborative art project
Today you can find (in my POD shop: Spoonflower and redbubble) some of my stylized seamless patterns to be printed on surfaces and fabric
I would talk about my style as a decorative one with a consistent stroke weight, hand-drawn line style, bold shapes with clean edges. The flat colors (with slight additional textures here and there), intentional minimal shading together with the sharp line work give my pattern designs a graphic clarity while maintaining the soul of a hand-painted piece,
I love the mid-century illustrative feel ! I dream of a classic sophisticated, yet playful, aesthetic where sharp line work would provide the touch of modern clarity.
My work is a kind of updated muralist tradition 🙂
… As if a vintage-like illustration had been found in a curiosity cabinet then reinterpreted with a contemporary sensibility.
My work as a pattern designer evokes paper, plaster, or ceramic glaze because I draw my inspiration from decorative tile traditions, particularly mediterranean and Arts & Crafts aesthetics, blending folk botanical illustration with architectural ornamentation.
Prior to illustration:
Before turning to illustration, I trained and worked for ten years as a social worker in child protection in Lyon and East London (Newham). Within this practice, I was already, in an early way, interested in the use of both mental and tangible imagery as a means of understanding and interpreting the world.
I also hold a Master’s degree in Anthropology (Lyon II University). Methodologically, I retain a formative approach to intertextuality, the idea that every text refers to another — as well as the constant back-and-forth between field observation and the literature connected to it. Ethnographic methods, today applied to contemporary worlds, train the eye to observe reality and to reflect on how it can be represented. These connections exist not only between texts, but also between images, and even between text and image. This interplay between visual and textual interpretation continues to fascinate me and informs my work in illustration and seamless pattern design.
The Luno book project
https://www.instagram.com/luno_book
At a certain point in my life, I found myself living abroad, confronted with a new culture and a new language. By a fortunate set of circumstances, my hobby of illustration gradually became more formal, particularly when I met Yaël Altuvia, a researcher at the University of Jerusalem and, alongside her academic work, a children’s author. She offered me a children’s text (LUNO) to illustrate. From there, I taught myself everything I now know about both digital and traditional drawing.
I published my first children’s book as an illustrator. It is called “Luno”, a flutist in search of melodies. It is so far published in Israel only because the story was originally written in Hebrew. The author of the book is also a researcher at Jerusalem university. I should propose a french translation to a French editor.
