Malika Favre studied graphic design in Paris at ENSAAMA before moving to the UK in 2004 to pursue her career as an illustrator. In 2011, Malika launched her own business as a freelance artist and illustrator. Since then, her unmistakable style has established her as one of the UK’s most sought-after graphic designers. Malika’s clients include The New Yorker, Montreux Jazz, Apple, Penguin Books and many more. After more than a decade living in London, Malika decided to move to Barcelona. Alongside her work as an illustrator, she continues to develop a body of personal work.
Malika Favre illustrates the biggest magazines with her minimalist, colourful and geometric style. She leaves her mark all over the world with works that captivate the eye with just a few lines and skilfully organised colours, playing on the art of contrast in particular.
Malika Favre is a French artist based in Barcelona. Her bold, minimal style – often described as a cross between Pop Art and Op Art – is a striking lesson in the use of positive/negative space and colour. His work always springs from a strong narrative core and aims to provoke the imagination with a little humour, a touch of sex appeal and a re-imagining of the ordinary. The guiding principle throughout Malika’s work is “less is more”.
“It’s important to campaign in the way you want/can, and especially with the means at your disposal. It took me a while to realise that my illustrations could also have a strong social impact (I owe a lot of that to The New Yorker too), and now it’s something that’s at the heart of my work. I don’t know many artists who don’t have opinions about the world around us”.
“Each city holds a very special place for me (and for my career as an artist, of course). I think Paris and France in general have had an undeniable influence on my graphic inspirations. French elegance and that very chic, sober side are very much in evidence in my early work, which defined my style. The sensuality, even the eroticism of some of my work, is also something I associate a lot with France”.
“London was the turning point. Above all, it taught me to open my eyes and get out of my comfort zone. The city was in a constant state of flux, which allowed me to become a full-time illustrator. Visually, it was such a rich place, teeming with creativity and influences from all over the world. It was there that my style really matured and took shape. The city taught me a lot of things, including how to be bold”.
“The real challenge is to tell a lot with very few elements, to tell a story in a single image”.
“Barcelona is my most recent residence, but it’s also the brightest and sunniest. I moved there more for reasons of quality of life and environment than for work. Strangely enough, I think my most colourful work was produced in London, probably to contrast with the surrounding greyness”.
“I see a subtle but clear evolution in my career, and publishing a monograph of 10 years’ work a while back really helped me identify it. My early work was very minimal, graphic and flat. Gradually the shadows came in (also graphic and flat), and depth appeared. I also did a lot of exploring of negative spaces and geometric games. The graphic style and the colourful, minimal approach remain the same, but each year I add a few strings to my bow, so to speak”.
If you were still in any doubt, Malika‘s work is resolutely feminist, with the figure of the woman predominating, and certain celebrities (like Beyoncé) no exception.
“The female body is magnificent and I particularly enjoy drawing strong female figures. What I enjoy is looking at things differently from my neighbour. Offering a different perspective on what people don’t necessarily see.”
Pop Art and Op Art
Pop Art may be well known to the general public, but Op Art is less so. First of all, Pop Art (Popular Art) appeared in Great Britain and in parallel in the United States in the 1950s, a period corresponding to the economic miracle.
Pop artists reintroduced figurative images into art and elevated the banal things of everyday life to the status of works of art. They drew on the figurative repertoire of mass culture (press, advertising, cinema, industrial design). There are many representatives of Pop Art: Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, David Hockney, Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein… to name but a few.
Op Art, on the other hand, is essentially abstract.
Op Art reached its peak in the 1960s. It focuses on the dynamic effects of colour and movement. Multicoloured structures are perceived as plastic and mobile elements. The pieces give the impression of movement, flashes of light and vibrations or alternating movements. Victor Vasarely, Frank Stella, Daniel Buren, Escher and others have all taken up this trend.
Coming back to Malika Favre, her style is completely in line with these two movements, as she works with bright, bold colours, using perspective and negative space. And her images are at once elegant, narrative and fairly minimalist. With good reason, she has become one of the most sought-after visual artists of the moment.
“Stripes play for @sephora over the many years of our collaboration”.
Malika Favre‘s poster for the Montreux Jazz Festival is in the tradition of optical illusions of form and counter-form. Black silhouettes of women float and dance freely in the style of Matisse. In the negative white spaces are hidden a series of instruments, including a double bass in the centre, but also a guitar, played by one of the dancers, and well-hidden saxophones.
“Pop, minimalist, colourful and sexy. I try to reduce the lines and colours in my work as much as possible. I’m fascinated by simplicity, the interplay of shapes and counter-forms”.
Light and shadow.
Her frequent use of negative space means that in her works, the distinction between figures and setting becomes blurred and, in fact, secondary. In a way, she draws with shadows. To achieve this, she uses only colour, large flat areas and simplifies the elements as much as possible. But the work remains legible and understandable. That’s where the graphic prowess lies.
Très belles réalisations du pop art. Simples, colorées,sexy et modernes. Je suis contente que l ‘héritier d ‘ Andy Warhol soit une femme. Excellent travail.