Stina Persson

I came across this artist in an issue of Creative Review, 

and her work has inspired quite a few

of my own designs in college development work. 

Stina Persson is a Swedish designer, who is currently based in her home town, but has previously worked in Tokyo and New York for a range of editorial and corporate clients: (Coca-Cola, Elle UK, Vogue, Nike etc.)

Her work always includes paper, acrylic, ink, dyes and pencil, and is usually digitally edited before being published. She describes her style as 'making the ugly pretty and making the beautiful edgy.' 

This was the first image I ever saw of her work, and I instantly loved it due to the edgy and contemporary style. In my work, I always tend to be tight and neat; afraid of being messy if I were to try an edgy style. Persson's work has inspired me and given me ideas as to how it can be done in a stylish way. Here, she has used cut up paper to unevenly add colour to the images and allowed ink to run down the page, which adds a grungy and urban effect. She has made subtle imperfections such as this to make her work edgy. 

Two more examples of her work. The peacock image used the same concept as using paper and ink in an edgy manner. The ink blot as the background works very well in bringing an urban and contemporary vibe to the image. I like how the colour runs over the outlines on the buildings as it brings atmosphere to the scene. 

This is a final piece for a project which called for a mixed media collage which represents the town of Chesterfield. As the colours from buildings from images I collected, I saw that the tones were very urban and grimy: grey, brown, beige etc. I influenced Persson's grimy and edgy style by adding messy streaks of ink and watercolour, which I think made the overall image atmospheric and interesting.