Yeah, Florence Lucas might define her drawing as merely a hobby, but that doesn't seem to stop her from making her living working for brands like Lacoste, Le Coq Sportif and agnès b., or drawing for great French publications like football magazine, So Foot. I'd love to see what she does when she's actually working.Florence has this unique way of taking mostly horrfying, sexual images from the internet, cropping, re-cropping and freely reinterpreting each one until she ends up with one of her hilariously bizarre, sometimes distressing pictures.
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So far these drawings have been exclusively black and white, but a few days ago she began frenetically posting new, colourful work on her Facebook. That worried me – I figured she might have suffered some kind of existential breakdown – so I called her to ask what was up.
VICE: The colours you’re using in some of your new drawings remind me a lot of Alan Moore's palette in Watchmen.
Florence Lucas: Yeah, you're right, in the sense that I don't try and use a realistic palette. In a way, every drawing is a reminder of the images that made me dream when I was a child. I wasn't allowed to watch TV, so I was dreaming while leafing through TV magazines and I also had time to read loads of illustrated books and comics. I create pictures I’d like to see. It's as if I was improving pictures I already liked. Has using colour changed your working process?
Yeah, of course. I'm having way more fun now – it's a real relief; I was freaking bored with black and white. Also, when you put colours on a picture, it feels like giving it a frame, whereas I found my black and white drawings a bit too drifty. It's also about the light. To be honest, I’m basically just discovering Photoshop ten years after everybody else. The technique doesn't really matter, you know, only the result. Some guys are pros at Photoshop, Illustrator and so on, but their work is shitty. I'm getting a graphics table soon, too, so I'll be able to work faster. Yeah, I noticed you were drawing more and more. Do you spend your whole days drawing?
Yeah, evenings, mornings, entire days. I sleep five hours a day and I spend the rest of my time drawing.
Florence Lucas: Yeah, you're right, in the sense that I don't try and use a realistic palette. In a way, every drawing is a reminder of the images that made me dream when I was a child. I wasn't allowed to watch TV, so I was dreaming while leafing through TV magazines and I also had time to read loads of illustrated books and comics. I create pictures I’d like to see. It's as if I was improving pictures I already liked. Has using colour changed your working process?
Yeah, of course. I'm having way more fun now – it's a real relief; I was freaking bored with black and white. Also, when you put colours on a picture, it feels like giving it a frame, whereas I found my black and white drawings a bit too drifty. It's also about the light. To be honest, I’m basically just discovering Photoshop ten years after everybody else. The technique doesn't really matter, you know, only the result. Some guys are pros at Photoshop, Illustrator and so on, but their work is shitty. I'm getting a graphics table soon, too, so I'll be able to work faster. Yeah, I noticed you were drawing more and more. Do you spend your whole days drawing?
Yeah, evenings, mornings, entire days. I sleep five hours a day and I spend the rest of my time drawing.
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Is it a compulsion for you?
Well, I've just got to hurry up because I'm working on a cartoon that's going to take me three months full time to finish, and I'm having an exhibition at the Tri Postal, Lille, at the beginning of November for Lille Fantastic. Then I'm going to Berlin to do this cartoon again. It's a cartoon for adults, which is cool, because I usually find animated movies incredibly depressing and fussy, but I'm excited about this one. That means there's gonna be some porn in there, right?
Yes. At least, I hope I'll be allowed to add some. Bot'Ox – the company making the film – have seen my drawings, so they know I won't be drawing flowers and rainbows and stuff like that. There'll be sex. And a bit of violence too.Good. Thanks, Florence!More artists we're into:Can a Three-Year Old Child Really Make Modern Art?The Last Man Painting Cinema Signs in EuropeThe Eyemazing World of Charlie Roberts
Well, I've just got to hurry up because I'm working on a cartoon that's going to take me three months full time to finish, and I'm having an exhibition at the Tri Postal, Lille, at the beginning of November for Lille Fantastic. Then I'm going to Berlin to do this cartoon again. It's a cartoon for adults, which is cool, because I usually find animated movies incredibly depressing and fussy, but I'm excited about this one. That means there's gonna be some porn in there, right?
Yes. At least, I hope I'll be allowed to add some. Bot'Ox – the company making the film – have seen my drawings, so they know I won't be drawing flowers and rainbows and stuff like that. There'll be sex. And a bit of violence too.Good. Thanks, Florence!More artists we're into:Can a Three-Year Old Child Really Make Modern Art?The Last Man Painting Cinema Signs in EuropeThe Eyemazing World of Charlie Roberts
