| I began painting in the streets of my hometown, Toulouse, France, in the early 1990s. My sensual “poupee” characters, painted with brush and acrylic paint as opposed to spray paint, powerfully stood out from the rest of the male-dominated graffiti pieces seen throughout my city. The characters’ sensuality, femininity, and unique style gained recognition and respect, from both females and males in the graffiti world as well as the art world. Soon a global following ensued, and my characters became icons in their own right. My characters connect and communicate something special to viewers. They are seductive yet submissive, commanding but docile, sexual and mysterious. Often animals, representing masculinity, accompany them… |  |
Miss Van
I began painting in the streets of my hometown, Toulouse, France, in the early 1990s. My sensual “poupee” characters, painted with brush and acrylic paint as opposed to spray paint, powerfully stood out from the rest of the male-dominated graffiti pieces seen throughout my city. The characters’ sensuality, femininity, and unique style gained recognition and respect, from both females and males in the graffiti world as well as the art world. Soon a global following ensued, and my characters became icons in their own right. My characters connect and communicate something special to viewers. They are seductive yet submissive, commanding but docile, sexual and mysterious. Often animals, representing masculinity, accompany them, sometimes dominant, and other times dominated.
In my latest series I continue to explore the duality in the feminine nature between delicacy and sensuality, and raw animal instinct. For example the pig masks and the six nipples of the she-wolf reveal the savage side of the female, showing that she can be attractive and nurturing yet repulsive. In my iconography, the pig and the female form blend seamlessly through the texture and color of their raw, naked flesh. This is my way of expressing the animalism present in human nature.
The masks hide yet reveal. They permit fantasies, acting, fooling, and playing. They add an erotic element to my paintings, while opening a world where sensuality can at times be sinister and mysterious. This is what I recognize in circus iconography and traditions, as well as vintage erotic photography, something very attractive and exciting, yet odd and unsettling. I do not want to create aesthetically pleasing images. The most important thing is to convey emotion, poetry, and a bit of magic.
After recent trips to Mexico and Brazil, I was strongly inspired by the folklore, cultures, and the bright colors and patterns that I found there. I was especially attracted to the animal masks that I found throughout Mexico, and have since collected and used in my paintings.
