The French illustrator on mountain magic, the “sisters” she draws, and why, at 31, she’s finally proud of her weirdness.
As part of my job as editor, I spend an unhealthy amount of time happily scrolling through Instagram in search of creative talent to write about. When it comes to illustration, there’s always a particular kind of art that stops me mid-scroll, and Clara Bergoënd makes it. It’s the women she draws, first of all. Because they’re strong, self-possessed and full of worldly wisdom, each one carrying something I can’t quite grasp but somehow understand. Then it’s the colour, which is fully saturated glory laid beautifully over hand-drawn black lines. And finally, it’s the feeling that everything is that little bit elevated and aspirational, the sort of place I’d like to be part of. It’s high fashion, in the best possible way.
So where does all of that come from? Not, as you might expect, from a fashion house or an art-school atelier. It comes from a mountain. Clara grew up in the French Alps, “where stories about invisible forces, nature spirits and healing traditions are part of local culture and history”. Her father is a fire healer (yes, really), a practice passed down through the generations in some mountain families, and Clara is one too. “I was raised hearing about energies, intuition and the idea that not everything can be explained,” she says.
As a child, she mixed this up with the books and pop culture she loved: witches, forest giants, folklore, astrology, the relationship between humans and the cosmos. Those influences have never really left. “Today, illustration allows me to embrace that side of myself. I’m proud of my weirdness, and I love weaving those invisible worlds into my work through symbols and dreamlike narratives.”
But her path to illustration wasn’t straightforward. Clara drew constantly when she was a kid, then, oddly, almost stopped during her studies in graphic design and advertising. “In my early twenties, I was so focused on becoming an adult and finding my place that I gradually disconnected from the thing I had always loved most,” she explains.
Cue the pandemic, and a first iPad. Suddenly she had a single tool that married her graphic-design training to her instinct for illustration, and she began drawing every day again, experimenting freely and slowly building a world of her own. She’s refreshingly honest that the world is still being built. “I still don’t feel that my style is fixed. It continues to evolve as I do. That can make me question my legitimacy or my vision, but I’ve come to understand that this uncertainty is also part of becoming a good and passionate illustrator.”
About that colour. Clara has always been drawn to it, both in graphic design and in the illustrators she admires, and she’s happy to tell you her brother, who’s also her boss on the design side, reckons she overdoes it. “He often tells me I use too many colours, and he’s probably right!” she laughs. “But I think that abundance has gradually become part of my visual language.”
With choosing palettes, Clara’s always looking to create contrast – darker tones for depth, brighter colours for energy and personality, and maybe a cream or lighter shade to keep things readable. After that, she goes with her gut. “I can usually feel when a palette is working or when it needs adjusting. The simplest test is whether my eye feels happy looking at it.”
Detail plays an important role in her work. Early on, she gave all her characters tattoos, a nod to her own. Now everything is subtler and more spontaneous, tied to whatever she’s thinking or feeling that day. “Sometimes a small symbol will spark another until an entire story begins to emerge. I rarely plan everything from the start. It feels more like following a path that slowly reveals itself while I’m drawing.”
Then there are the women. Clara calls them her sisters. Why? “I often think of the women I draw as different versions of myself, or maybe the women I would love to become. I call them my sisters. They live in different places, cultures and realities, but they all share a sense of strength, freedom and individuality.”
She’s fascinated by women, as her work demonstrates. But also by faces and the way people put themselves together. Her style has shifted maybe six times over the years, from caricature and flat design through comics, realism and surrealism, and each phase taught her something new. She feels she’s closing in on a visual language that’s truly hers, even if she can’t quite name it. “It’s funny, I can’t give it a style name. Can you?”
Fashion has been in the mix since childhood. At 10, she was buying Vogue (like the rest of us), cutting out campaign images and papering her bedroom walls with them, and for a while she dreamed of becoming a fashion designer. That thread shows up in the conceptual pieces in her portfolio, including her Loewe and Guerlain projects, which were personal concept projects rather than commissions. She made them because she loves the fashion world, Loewe especially, for the way it embraces surrealism, nature and unexpected visual storytelling. “There’s a sense of curiosity and strangeness in its world that resonates deeply with my own work. Those projects were a way of exploring what a dialogue between my visual language and the fashion world could look like.”
It’s not all as glamorous as it sounds, living in the Alps. But although it can sometimes be frustrating, Clara wouldn’t trade mountain life for anything. Even though distance from cities can leave her feeling less inspired. So she’s turned that tension into fuel. “When I draw a city, it almost feels like I’m travelling there again. I bring back the energy, the architecture, the fashion and all the little details I’ve missed.”
There’s a lovely development on that front too: she’s recently been signed by the Italian agency Brillo. “It’s special for me, being a mountain girl represented in a country with such a strong fashion culture. It makes me feel connected to that world while still creating from the place I love most.”
Despite this positive news, Clara hasn’t had an easy year so far. There’s been a rejection from a brand she really hopes to work with someday, and a near-miss on an international art competition. But rather than get too disheartened, Clara went back to the drawing board. She decided to take new art classes to help figure out what’s next. “Looking back, those setbacks helped me understand what I really wanted from my work. They brought me back to something more personal and honest, and I think I’m growing now thanks to them.”
She’s clear-eyed about AI, and not especially rattled by it where illustration is concerned. What she loves in an artist’s work is usually the imperfect part. “A particular line, an unusual composition, even an anatomical mistake that somehow becomes beautiful and recognisable,” she explains. “AI can produce an image, but I don’t think it can replace the personal history, sensitivity and strange little choices that make people recognise an artist’s work.”
Her graphic-design brain, which once got in the way by pushing everything towards clean and useful, now works hand in hand with the illustrator. It helps her play with composition, colour and pattern, and it lets her see how an image might become packaging, a print, an object or a whole campaign. By day she’s a graphic designer at the agency Mojocom, where paper quality is taken seriously, which is partly why the prints in her online shop are printed on beautiful art paper. She wants people to feel the texture, not just scroll past it.
There’s more on the way: a new series for the shop with a completely fresh theme, and an exciting project she can’t talk about yet, launching in September. “The end of summer is always a moment when I feel new ideas starting to appear.” That makes two of us.
And if she could send a message back to little Clara, or Clarinette, as she was? She’s already writing it, project by project. “I’d tell her I’m doing everything I can to make her proud. That I won’t give up on our dreams, even when things take longer than expected. And that we’re supported by amazing people.” A pause, and the perfectionist grins through. “I’d also promise her that one day, I’ll learn to be less hard on myself.”
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