In surface pattern design I sometimes get overwhelmed by florals. So when I spot something unusual that is not a floral I tend to sit up and take notice. I stumbled across Michaël Cailloux’s work, quite by accident and was immediately intrigued. Michaël is a French designer of ‘wall jewellery’, scarves (like the one above) and painted papers. I strongly recommend you visit his site (it’s in French and English) so you can really appreciate his work.
For me, I was struck by the unusual imagery he adds to his designs; gingko leaves with fish and eels. You’ll find frogs, pelicans, parrots and beetles and my personally I love that most of his designs include flies.
They are beautifully rendered and arranged and remind me somewhat of my fascination when I was at art school of trying to spot the beetles or flies in Renaissance paintings. In northern Renaissance religious art especially the fly was sometimes included as it was thought to repel real flies and in some Christian art the fly was symbol of evil, pestilence or sin.
The fly is central to most of Michaël’s work as a symbol of life and death, he references 16th Century still life paintings as inspiration for his work. His graduating thesis was on the fly in 18th century art. I think that’s why his work is so appealing to me.
You can view all Michaël’s work on his website and get a glimpse of what he’s working on via twitter.
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