Imaginary Friend
A FRIEND WHO WANTS YOU WELL
COURSE
How did you become an artist?
It was both very simple and very complicated. You become an artist before you truly are one. As a child, I always asked my parents why it wasn't possible to paint your house in colors with flowers. Later, artists helped me discover that some people actually did paint their houses however they wanted. I've always drawn, but I studied film because there were no drawing programs available where I lived, and it was the path my best friend had chosen. It eventually became my passion, and for several years I progressed in that direction without ever stopping drawing and painting. I worked on storyboards, constantly striving to make them more aesthetically pleasing. In recent years, I've been making stop-motion and claymation films. It was fascinating to see the material come to life and to really get my hands dirty. But it's difficult to make a living from it when four minutes of animation require a year of work. Between film shoots, I would return to painting, until I went through a period when I wasn't doing well. I then began to depict these joyful animals and, realizing that they helped me feel better, I wanted to share them, hence the idea of putting them in the street.
Did you have any prior knowledge of urban art?
When I first came to Paris as a teenager, street art immediately captivated me. My friends and I would take the RER to Châtelet to spend our afternoons at the Banque de l'Image near the Centre Pompidou. It was there, seeing a postcard of the "Ruée vers l'Art" poster painted by Speedy Graphito, that I experienced one of my first artistic epiphanies. I discovered his work, and that of Jérôme Mesnager, which I tried to reproduce in my notebook.
The question of legitimacy was central to your move to the streets.
When I started, I seriously questioned my legitimacy. There are great masters behind us, and I worried about whether what I was putting out there was beautiful enough, relevant enough, to be displayed on the street. Would it make the city more beautiful? Was it something I was putting out for ego? I worked incredibly hard to achieve a result that I was more satisfied with, and when my friends and family encouraged me to join Instagram, the feedback I received confirmed that I was in the right direction.
When did this shift occur?
After pasting up my first cat (in 2012), I waited a year before returning to the street, but it was following the Charlie Hebdo attacks, where I drew and installed a dove in the Place de la République, that I truly became involved. This event certainly had an influence. The choice of collage was made for several reasons: my lack of confidence in painting directly on the wall, the possibility for the resident to remove the piece if they didn't like it, and the opportunity to work at my own pace and without pressure in the studio, thus offering something neat and polished.
Did these questions about the meaning of your approach already exist in your previous artistic activity?
It wasn't exactly the same because I wasn't completely free to do what I wanted: budget problems arise in the development of a film project so monstrous that everything becomes compromised, if it doesn't simply lead to cancellation. Being a director is an uphill battle. For me, the possibility of proposing a very simple but perfectly sincere action in the street changed things. With Imaginary Friend, I produced an artistic creation freely for the first time, without trying to intellectualize it. Sticking that first rainbow-colored cat on a doorstep on Rue Sainte-Marthe felt good, because I was no longer trying to hide anything, unlike those screenplay projects whose sincerity, as the writing progressed, ended up disappearing under a layer of symbolism (film analysis pollutes the writing, and what may be authentic at the outset becomes less so with each new version).
SIMPLICITY OF THE LINE
Your style involves a great deal of simplification to represent the animal.
It all started with a Pop Art inspiration, from Speedy Graphito and Keith Haring: when I discovered his work, the former was creating his crowned figures with their particularly simple lines. I was twelve years old and I could draw them, which proved to be a very significant experience. I discovered that painting could be something that wasn't necessarily technically beyond my reach, unlike classical painting, which is magical but demands an astonishing level of mastery. That "simple" lines and techniques could be no less beautiful and effective. Seeing those lines as a child opened up a world of possibilities for me.
This leads to a result that becomes a kind of animal type.
Now, several steps are necessary to achieve this line, because I want it to be legible from a distance and for the composition to be as fluid as possible. I work on the shapes separately from the rest, by feel, during days dedicated solely to drawing. I use animal photographs, and since I don't have a realistic technique, I trace several to find the right position. The pattern will only come later, once I'm happy with the shape. There are some animals I've never colored because I'm not satisfied with them. Once I've found the line, I take a photo and work on it digitally to create a stencil that won't budge. During my early years, I did everything by hand, but when I made a collage of all my cats for my second birthday on the street, I realized they were never identical. That's when I decided to stencil them.
Your work involves the dual components of line and background. Regarding the choice of motifs, do you have a gallery that you apply to pre-existing shapes or lines that you seek to fill?
Having a minimalist approach to the animal forms is one thing, but the pattern itself is another, bringing color and joy. I have a collection of patterns I enjoy creating, and it's growing over time. Some of them, like chevrons, can be done with stencils, but I generally prefer working on slightly more complex designs (floral, for example) that I can paint by hand, as I'm not a stencil artist and cutting quickly bores me. It's also a way for me to progress towards a more realistic style.
KEYS TO UNDERSTANDING AN INTIMATE WORLD
The choice of the name Imaginary Friend almost provides a key to understanding your work. Did you make this choice for the immediate closeness it can offer in interaction with the public and children?
I speak to the child within everyone, whether they're four or seventy. I try to reach that little person inside people, but it's also the one who expresses herself in me when I create. It's a precious element: we lead hectic lives in the city, which aren't always easy, and seeing animals and color is enough to bring us closer to that innocence. The concept of an imaginary friend fascinates me, yet it's often approached from a psychotherapeutic perspective as a failing: if you have an imaginary friend, it means something is wrong. On the contrary, I find that this projection of ourselves, like a little hand on the shoulder, is the first act of kindness we can offer ourselves. Perhaps understanding and listening to others begins here.
Is indicating this name without the e here a matter of neutrality or preserving the medical term?
It's neither one nor the other. An imaginary friend can be a pink elephant with a giraffe's neck, whether he/she is called Alfred or Georgette, we don't really care.
The question of gender in street art, and in art in general, often comes up. I've participated in several exhibitions that featured only women. But once your work is in the street, your gender becomes irrelevant, and I never ask myself the sex of the artist whose work I'm discovering; only the emotion I feel matters. In a way, it's problematic that we're still asking this question. If my work were more politically engaged, I might approach this issue differently, but that's not the case. I find that the small Parisian street art scene I'm fortunate enough to be part of is very open about this; among my fellow artists, I've never felt the slightest difference in treatment because I'm a woman. That's a welcome change.
THE STREET SETTING
The graphic dimension of your work is amplified by the location where you place it. How do you choose the location? Do you anticipate the photograph of the artwork from that moment?
I don't usually scout locations beforehand, wandering around with my drawings in search of a place I like. So, I often end up not putting up any pieces at all, simply because I can't find the right spot. Since my work is quite small, I focus on a limited area where the collage can come to life, even if it sometimes looks incongruous when viewed from a wider perspective. Most Parisian walls are a rather ugly beige that clashes with my color palette, and since I don't like the accumulation of collages, I look for blank walls, ideally with a visible architectural element. However, I don't put up my pieces with photography in mind, unless I'm in an incredible location that I want to share. I mainly create close-ups for people who won't be able to see the artwork themselves.
What is your relationship to the ephemeral nature of collage?
At first, it bothered me a lot when someone tore or ripped off one of my pieces, especially since I did everything by hand. But now I don't like my work to remain in the street for too long. Its ephemeral nature prevents the piece from gradually deteriorating, and it's not my goal to scatter half-torn collages simply to mark my presence. Indeed, walls covered with a multitude of collages don't always age well, and can we still call it artistic creation if the whole thing just becomes visual pollution? So, I reattach friends' collages that are in danger when I have supplies with me, as many other artists do. When they do end up getting damaged, though, I try to put another animal on top because I like the idea of a spotlight: for two years, I had three or four flamingos that took turns on a door next to the Ourcq Canal.
In what ways is the street a unique space for creation?
Putting up posters in the street is a spontaneous act, with no calculation other than hoping to bring joy to someone. The street is a space of freedom, but you can't do just anything, and some pieces generate a bit more pressure. Initially, I put them up at night, which made me feel like I was doing something wrong. The people you meet at that time of day aren't the same either, and it's not the same to put them up alone when you're a woman. Working during the day also forces me to come out of my shell a bit, through these positive encounters, like the children outside school who stop and chat. The feedback is generally very kind, which is very pleasant.
Do you feel like you are part of an artistic movement?
It's hard to say, because street art is so multifaceted that it's legitimate to question whether it truly constitutes an artistic movement. There are pioneers who paved the way for an approach, but not a movement in the way those that came before were defined. Within it, I've met a multitude of friends who make me feel like I'm part of a family and that I belong. We'll have to ask ourselves in thirty years what it was all about, but yes, something is happening. I think that taking a freedom that isn't offered, without expecting anything in return, is a form of resistance to the world we live in. This state of genuine camaraderie, like a group of kids, also testifies to the fact that the vast majority of artists start for the same reason, offering work that comes from the heart and soul. Our highly individualistic society pushes us to crush our neighbors to get ahead: street art shows the opposite path, one that would be fantastic to pass on. In a way it's a reaction to the catastrophe: trying to introduce gentleness and life where all there is is destruction and violence.
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