Valérie Moigne, alias Misstigri, is an independent artist based in Nantes, where she also runs a small shop.
After a Bac F12 in applied arts and a BTS in interior architecture, she went on to a long course of study at the Beaux-Arts, majoring in design. Despite an attempt at architecture, her passion for images took over and led her to set up as an independent graphic designer in 2000. As this work was driven by clients' constraints, she looked for an outlet by starting to paint, and gave birth to female characters who would become her trademark: "Les Misstinguettes".
Today, as a graphic designer, illustrator and painter all at once, she draws her inspiration as much from painting, with influences such as Klimt, Mucha, Schiele and Pignon-Ernest, as from comics, through Bilal, Manara and Dautremer, or from fashion (Lacroix, Gaultier, Miyake...) and animated film (Burton, Miyazaki...).
Her technique begins with a sketch, which she then reproduces at the scale of the canvas. Like a schoolteacher, she lays down the main lines of the drawing in chalk. She refines, evens out, then wipes away with the back of her smock anything that clutters legibility... The base is in place.
The skin, the clothes, the hair, then the rough shadows in acrylic. The precise shadows, the volumes and the make-up in very oily pastel. A small touch of precision for the finishing with Posca (gouache marker) and 3D paint (Tulip). If the young lady coming to life asks her to, she embellishes her outfit with feathers, lace or ribbons...
Today she has gained a great deal of renown and is considered by many to be a reference in her own right...
