Artist Feature: Johanna Tagada / BonjourJohanna

As I was going through a blog-redesign binge in the wee hours of the morning last week, I realised that one of my sidebar categories reads: "Art", and I haven't featured an artist in over 3 months! :o So without further ado, let's get into some art!

Johanna Tagada is an abstract painter who also works with many different media, including painting, collage, photography, textile design, and ceramics. She's originally from France, but currently lives in Germany. Her heritage is multicultural, and so are her interests; She speaks many different languages, travels often, and is inspired by cultural heritage, especially folk art. Her irregular patterns and shapes have something of a tribal or naive feeling to them, yet the colours and sparse compositions make it feel quite modern. The pattern below, with its visible painted texture, resembles cracked mud, a motif that brings to mind the ancient past, hunter-gatherers, wild, harsh environments - What makes this image modern is the two-dimensionality and the pastel colour. The best way I can describe her colour palette is: Sun-bleached pastels.




I really enjoy the textile pattern below, as it looks a bit like a quilt - an art form that has a long history and folk-craft connotations.


In her shop, you can find many different kinds of objects, prints, pins, zines, and even hand painted t-shirts. This one's pretty adorable, and even comes with some tea leaves and a matching card! I'm calling it "The Tea Tee" ... heh heh heh.

Speaking of her store, I love the paint-dollop background she has going on! I've been looking around for web and blog-design inspiration recently, and her store has a fresh feeling to it.


If you want to learn more about Johanna, I have links to a couple interviews she's done below, as well as all her other sites. She seems like a wonderful person: unpretentious, open, creative, and optimistic, just like her art. The best way you can support her is to like/share her work, or even better, buy something from her shop!


You can find her here:
Shop - Bonjour Supermarket
Blog - Bonjour Johanna
Portfolio - Johanna Tagada
Instagram: bonjourjohannatagada
Facebook
Interview about her life
Interview about her aesthetics






My links:
Instagram // Pinterest // Bloglovin // Society6

Darla Dear on an iPhone

Okay guys, this has been the highlight of my day - scratch that - of my WEEK even. There's this site, Society6, where artists can post and sell their artwork. I already sell prints through Etsy, but what makes Society6 unique is that they produce iPhone cases with my photography on them! (not to mention they handle all the printing, packaging, and shipping, which is pretty cool)

This image is my favorite so far! It ended up fitting perfectly after I flipped it, and I'm super proud of it!



Feel free to check out my Society6 shop, and pin something if you like it! I don't invest much time into it, as it pretty much runs itself, but if you're in the market for an iPhone case... *wink, wink* There are also loose prints and framed prints of some of my work :)

PS: Happy First Day of March!

Treasury - Pattern, Shape, and Color

In class, we've been studying Henri Matisse and Fauvism of the very early 20th Century. The characteristics of their paintings are: the love of surface patterning using flat shapes, and the unashamed use of pure, bright color (perhaps my next art history post will be about these rad dudes). I was inspired by this mini art movement, but replaced their super-saturated color palettes for a more refined and soothing one.

I had to research color names, and these are the three I came up with to describe this Treasury: light azure, pale peach, and camel. It's fun to search color terms in Google images and see what pops up... or maybe that's just a weird quirk of mine!




If you click here, you can take a closer look at each fantastically minimalist/modernist item. :)