@marie.lafrance

Instagram: @marie.lafrance Website: www.marielafrance.net  

1. What's your story? Where are you from?

I’m in and from Quebec, the french part of Canada. Well actually I pretty much live in my studio, conveniently now situated in my house, where I visit sometimes for food and/or company.

2. Tell us about your aesthetic.

I love Graphic design, so I’m always searching for the right tension between shapes and colors. Working on assignments I’m often asked for a flurry of details, it can be fun and challenging, but I prefer simplicity, which may be the hardest thing to master.

3. What is your favourite medium and why?

Would be the pencil. That’s how I started as a kid. I made a long detour painting with acrylics, because I love colors, but I have to confess I’m not so good with brushes. So I’ve found true happiness with Photoshop, drawing everything in black and white and coloring on the computer.

4. What is your artistic process like?

First I see nothing, I bite my nails and think I’ll never be able to do anything. I may look at other people’s images and think I’d love to be anybody else than myself. Then I start doodling horrible nonsensical shapes. Painful as it sounds it can be fun too because all is open at that stage. Then some awkward thingy on the page takes me somewhere and I build on it. Once that door has opened everything falls into place, I get tons of ideas.

5. Who and/or what inspires your work?

So many people, truly. I love to see how others craft an image and express an idea. I love browsing around, it’s really for me a crash course in possibilities. To name a few, Martin Jarrie, Joanna Concejo, Pascal Blanchet.

6. What role does art play in your life? How does it change the way you view the world?

All around us is pretty much made to fit into squares. Art would be the curvy shapes sticking out of the squares, as nature is, do I make sense here ?

7. Where did you study?

Here in Montreal, in graphic arts. Never practiced. After my studies I went to live tor a few years in San Francisco and New York, where I worked as a silkscreen printmaker, and built myself a first portfolio. I’ve been freelancing since.

8. Where do you see yourself in five years?

In the same place, hopefully. I illustrate a lot of kidlit. I’d love to write my own stories, that’s a goal.

9. What about in ten?

Same! I’d like to travel more, which is hard for me, I’m claustrophobic so I have a hard time getting on a plane. I’d love to work in a little house near some ocean, with good wifi!

10. What do you hope to achieve with your art?

Working in kid’s literature I came to realize the effect it can have on a young mind, so I hope all of us kidliters can help to find a cure to the general chaos!

11. Now, tell us a little more about you as a person: what is your favourite food?

I love curries, and anything with fresh herbs and garlic.

12. Favourite book?

I’ve read and read again all of Alice Munro’s books in the past years.

13. Favourite genre of music?

I’m a folkie. But I listen to everything else too, from classical to rap.

14. What are your hobbies?

I walk and bike around, oh, and I cook too.

15. If you weren't an artist, what would you be?

Hmmm. Maybe I’d work in a library.