Iris Compiet
Location: Netherlands Web: www.eyeris.eu Email : info@eyeris.eu media: Graphite pencil, watercolour, gouache, ink Iris sees herself as a visual storyteller. She works as a freelance illustrator, designing characters and creating artwork for films and animations, and illustrating book covers and stories for clients worldwide. She’s also working on her own children’s books about “weird witches and not-soscary monsters”.
Iris likes the weird, the wonderful, the grim, the whimsical and the mysterious. “I like to make people look again. I like them to use their imagination,” she says. “I see stories everywhere. I hear them in a whisper. I see them in a leaf or a puff of smoke. Anything is possible. To me, art is being absolutely free, having no boundaries but your own imagination. My sketchbooks are filled with stories to tell for at least two lifetimes.”
1 Black Widow, Latrodectus
Graphite pencil, gouache and gold ink, 23x23in “This character is mourning the death of her husband, who recently passed away. She loved him so very much. Yet people were starting to spread nasty rumours about her, implying she was a monster.”
2 Misfortuneteller
Graphite pencil, red chalk, terracotta pencil and gold acrylic paint, 12x24in “This started as a sketch of a skeleton with three eye sockets, based upon a skull at the Mutter Museum. This idea popped in my mind: what if you could have your misfortune told, instead of your fortune? Wouldn’t that be more interesting, because if you know your misfortune everything else is ‘fortune’?”
3 Oracle
Graphite pencil, 12x24in “This came about when I took some reference shots of myself. One looked weird because it had completely white eyes. I took things from there and suddenly fish appeared, demons, skulls and other little details. You keep seeing new elements. Like an oracle, she will show you what you want to see.”
4 Marie Antoinette
Graphite pencil and gouache washes, 9.5x15in “I have a fascination with tentacles and the kraken, and I like to play with things. That’s how Marie came to be. The hairdos were crazy at the French court: birdcages with live birds or complete flower arrangements were ‘normal’ – even miniature ships. So I managed to combine the kraken with a little history.”