Jacquie Severs

I started out the Illustrator of the Month feature as a place to talk about great illustrators who I came across in my work that I couldn't use on products for various reasons. As time went on the reach of 'Illustrator' seemed a bit short, after all, where does Illustration end and Art begin? Doesn't fine art illustrate ideas at times too?  It's been easy for me to talk myself into keeping it as Illustrator of the Month even when it should have been correctly titled "Painter of the Month" or whatever, cause painting and illustrating aren't really that far off from one another when you get right down to it.


But I'm in a bit of a conundrum now. I've got a new job at an art gallery and I'm encountering all sorts of different art in my job and less illustration. Of course I'm totally inspired and loving studying art history again. That said, I still love illustration, so I don't want to abandon it as a post topic entirely and beyond that I plan to get my ass in gear and do some more of my own illustrations again soon - it's been a long while since I did a series. So I want to stay immersed in illustration, but I keep coming across other awesome artists I want to feature who aren't illustrators.

Alas dear readers it's my blog and I can be inaccurate if I want to. So suck it! I'm keeping the title "Illustrator of the Month" no matter what.


This month's Illustrator Artist of the Month is actually a photographer. Alexandra Catiere is a fine art photographer born in Belarus in 1978. She studied in Russia, then studied and worked in New York (apprenticing under Irving Penn, no less) and now lives in Paris. Her work has been shown internationally in fine art forums such as gallery shows, but it is her work for the fashion industry that really grabs me.






















Perhaps it is her background in the fine arts that lends such a lovely artistic quality to her images. They are painterly and her use of colour and light is overwhelmingly beautiful. Doesn't this one at left remind you of the Dutch masters?


I was immediately reminded of Vermeer's Girl with the Pearl Earring.












It should come as  no surprise that Catiere is constantly working - The New Yorker, The New York Times, Le Monde, Dazed & Confused, Gentelwoman, American Photo and Crash magazines have all featured her work recently.

Check out Catiere's award-winning fine art photography series Behind the Glass (2005).

Check out Catiere's work for Crash magazine inspired by Grey Gardens.(2009)

Check out Catiere's work for the NY Times blog - a series of pics from Paris Fashion Week (2010).


Check out Catiere's series for Lurve magazine, it's eerie and called Stairway to Heaven (2010).