THE FEMININE MISS.TIC

She toys with words

Miss.Tic's provocative stenciled self-portraits with pithy phrases and plays on words, are as pertinent as they are impertinent-- which must explain in part the wide appeal of this enduring Parisian street artist.

A phenomenal success and extremely active, she's spray-painted her way from the streets of Paris straight into galleries and institutions... and has received commissions from big names such as Longchamp, Louis Vuitton and Kenzo. One of her most memorable shows was sponsored by the city of Paris: a year-long open-air exhibit,  Femmes Capitales, for which she painted more than 100 stencils on buildings and walls throughout the 13th arrondissement. An about face for a street artist who had once been fined for property defacement in the early days of her career.


Miss.Tic's ironic works mirror the feminine mystique of the modern Parisian woman, in all her superficiality and profundity. She clicks so well with the public that she inspired a parody stencil, Miss.Toc.

Like Jérôme Mesnager, (see earlier post Puddle-Hopping Paris) Miss.Tic is a first generation Parisian street artist who began painting city walls in the 1980s to capture an immediate audience for her work. During this "avant tag" period, i.e., before tagging became a favorite activity of vandals in the late 1980s, the development of art in the streets was relatively well tolerated in Paris. Graffiti made its entrance into private galleries and became a part of the popular art heritage--a good ten years after the 1970s street art movement in New York.

The above text is an excerpt, with slight revisions,  from an article I wrote, Inside Outsider Art, which appeared in France Today magazine, and is published here with permission.  It is a continuation of my previous post, Puddle-Hopping Paris. More to come...


For complete Miss.Tic resources, including photos of her in action, click on http://www.missticinparis.com/

Text & photos © 2010 P.B. Lecron