Department Store Printmaking Screen Print

Les Canailles

posted by Amber Weaver January 29, 2018

We love getting to know how our vendors who are featured on our curated marketplace Department Store came to creating such beautiful work. A story that we must tell, is that of Les Canailles beginning with a love story in South America. Founder Diane was finishing her arts studies whilst Jérémie decided to quit his job and off they went to Buenos Aires. In 2016 emerged the style of Les canailles, combining the artistic and literary background of Diane to the graphic culture of Jérémie.

After one year of travel, the duo came back to Paris with the head full of mystic stories and incredible landscapes. They began to print their illustrations using a silkscreen printing process basing their aesthetic on forms and block saturated colours. The process of screen printing keeps the work very honest with the elements of hand-made whilst the highly saturated colours and use of space is the signature of their playful – but not infantile – universe.

“We wanted to create empathic and authentic images which are opposed to the ambient pessimism of our society” the pair tell us.

While they began with a large interest in landscape, which was for them a way to traduce their experience of Argentina’s topography and tales, their references interact with our own memories. Permitting them to play with the representation of space and to explore the part of fantasy and beauty in real life.