Malika Favre - an outstanding Pop Artist of the present - a review of her work and style

A good place to start !

Once in a while, an artist appears on the scene that has that Wow! factor.

I must admit that I do have a fondness for Pop art, more specifically the Roy Lichtenstein / Andy Warhol type of style.

So, when I came by Malika Favre's art on Pintrest, immediately I was drawn to it.

Pop type illustration and art is something I like to do and I endured the wrath of a Royal Academy trained art teacher at school art classes who couldn't handle me using black, bold lines to define shapes. I still do when it suits the work.

To me, Pop Art is about impact and simplicity.

Many years ago, I was looking at the work of Brian Cook, a British artist of the 1930's who did advertising posters for the railway companies, his work was in colour, but the colour printing of that time was defined by the primitive colour printing processes of that time - solid colours and 8 colours usually.

Brian Cook developed a radical 'colour impact' style, as did others of the time such as E.MacKnight Kaufer, who used colours, boldly too on advertising posters.

Marika's art is bold, colourful and economic, its beauty is its simple and economic use of line and form, like a good dish from a Chef it is never 'over egged' or over worked.

The work uses clever geometry, use of colour and use of line that suggests shape to the eye and the brain, coupled with great original ideas. Her work scores top marks on every front.

She is not 'stuck' in a particular theme either, taking on fashion, book cover illustration work and more, rather than some artists who get a hit piece and milk the style of it dry.

You can choose any number of landmark artists such as Picasso, Monet, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol who produced 'signature' style art. Marika Favre is up there with them. Like those I mentioned, they came up with 'signature' styles of work, she is one of the newer examples of what is great and 'signature'.

Sometimes the most simple of things are the best, a few simple ingredients used by a Chef can make a great meal, the same goes for Marika Favre's work, simple lines, mostly block colours, clever use of line and great draughtsmanship, coupled with great ideas.

By simple, these works likely take a lot of time to achieve and make look 'simple,' but it is more than that, it is the great ideas in the mind of the artist which translate onto paper or whatever medium you apply it too. Like a musician, you might have a signature sound, but unless you have great musical ideas, it sounds samey.

I find Marika's work is refreshing and exciting, it is new, fresh and wonderful!

Roy Lichtenstein the comic book graphic genius in review

                                  An F-86 Sabre jet In the style of Roy Lichtenstein

The original 'Whaam' by Roy Lichtenstein

The style of the late Roy Lichtenstein is instantly recognisable, from the comic book lines to the Benday dot colouring, you know who is responsible.

For me, Roy's work is dynamic and punchy. It delivers a nether world that never was in some respects, a modern America that is resplendent in its plasticity and consumer good driven white picket fence bubble.

I used to be able to buy cheap tin plate toys often coming from Hong Kong or Japan in the early 1970's before the liberal health and safety pariahs decried tin plate was dangerous. These tin plate press-formed toys were Roy Lichtenstein's artworks made flesh, well tin at any rate.

Using the Benday dots and solid colours in a harmonious union of colour, these toys either friction drive or wound up with a key were futuristic and dynamic looking.

Beyond the play value, these fragile icons looked great on the shelf. These extrusions were pop art for the masses, whenever I see a Roy Lichtenstein picture, I also think of the tin plate toys lost or still in my grasp.

I was fortunate to see the original picture of Whaam in the canvas, to actually be within a foot of those many little hand painted dots was incredible, especially when you saw the scale of the artwork.

For his dynamic impact which was all pop art is about, some of his geometry was not very exact, some of the detail on the aeroplanes were not quite 'right' but that would be only known to a person with that knowledge.

From the famous soup cans of the Pop Art era to the glamourous pin ups Roy drew, bright and often garish colours were the order of the day, impact was the name of the game.

Roy Lichtenstein broke through that illustration barrier of snobbery. Gone were the stuck-up art school pretentiousness of 'fine art' and 'classic line' that was a relic of the 18th century. Now we had West Side Story energy thrown at you, bursting with vitality.

Roy Lichtenstein broke the mould when he gave permission to be bold and simple, like Buddy Holly with often three chords and three musicians, he simplified and gave tremendous impact over the old age with a symphony orchestra behind dressed in tuxedos.

It was a pity that Roy Lichtenstein did not bring his work to life in the computer age, his iconic figures could then have been automated and pushed into motion pictures. This sort of thing was done at the time in the Yellow Submarine Beatles film, but it was all hand drawn pop art.

Pop art might be defined as Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol styles, but Jackson Pollock was in his own right a pop artists. His spun paint pictures may seem simple, but the flung out strands of paint seem to illustrate a desperation, like outstretched human limbs, grasping for something, whatever your interpretation, be that food, adulation, escape perhaps, this art is not just mindless and cheap.

Peter Blake with his Sergeant Pepper collage album cover is defined as a 'pop artist' because of that cover. No doubt, the sniffy art critics might have brushed aside that piece of iconic work as lazy, cut and paste robbery from a nostalgic age.

Or consider the work of Terry Gilliam, should that also be slated as some sort of juvenile rip off of Victoriana? No, it was clever, surreal and looks fresh, Pop Art does, that is the whole point.

It is alternative, different and is a bit like Frankenstein's monster, it doesn't really sit with the other art forms. Like the music that came together to form 1950's Rock and Roll, Pop Art is that unruly and slightly dangerous cousin that bred with close relatives to go onto spawn the Punk Rock movement and challenged the viewer to 'look at me.'

Pop Art is the art of the 'off centre' that's why I like it. It doesn't do convention.