Art · By · MoMo

About

Hi, I'm MoMo.

I draw women. Soft ones, sharp ones, strong ones, creepy ones, bubbly ones, edgy ones — women in all the shapes and moods they actually come in. My work lives somewhere between Art Nouveau and a manga panel, with a punk record playing in the background. Classical, but with a twist. Classy, with an edge.

I've been making art since I could hold a pencil. I grew up in France, where Art Nouveau was just… the wallpaper of life, and Alphonse Mucha quietly took up permanent residence in my brain. Add a steady diet of Japanese manga, a soft spot for Rococo and Baroque, and a deep love of goth and punk aesthetics, and you get my work: ornamental, decorative, detailed, a little weird, hopefully beautiful.

I went to art school at 18, then spent the next twenty years doing what I was supposed to do — earned an MBA, built a corporate career, the whole responsible adult package. It nearly broke me. A few years ago, my health forced me to stop and listen, and what I heard was loud and clear: I'd been repressing the artist at my core for two decades, and she wanted out. So here we are.

I work primarily in graphite, blue pencil, ink, alcohol marker, and watercolor — usually on Bristol or Arches, depending on the medium. I sketch obsessively, ink carefully, and leave the blue pencil lines visible underneath the color because I love that you can still see how the piece was made. The story stays on the page.

My work is, at its heart, beauty for its own sake. I'm not trying to send a message or solve a problem. I'm trying to make something that asks you to look — really look — for a moment. We don't do that enough.

I live in Austin with my husband and three kids, who are the best things I've ever made. I'm an introvert, a homebody, a proud French-American Jewish woman, and a card-carrying weirdo. I'd rather be in my studio than almost anywhere else.

Originals, prints, and merchandise are available in the shop. Commissions are open — fill out the form and I'll be in touch. Licensing inquiries welcome.

Artist Statement

My work draws on the ornamental traditions of Art Nouveau, Rococo, and Baroque, filtered through the visual language of Japanese manga and the attitude of goth and punk subcultures. I work primarily in pen, alcohol marker, and watercolor, building detailed portraits of women in all their forms — soft and sharp, fragile and ferocious, classical and contemporary at once. I am interested in beauty as a complete proposition. Not beauty in service of a message, a market, or a moral — but beauty as something worth making for its own reasons.

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