Published at 1:27 am. Updated at 7:00 a.m.
The thousands of motorists heading north on the Décarie motorway every day see his mural on Habitations Bourret. His cheerful and colorful characters also enliven the walls of Montreal-Trudeau Airport and the green alleys of the Villeray district.
In fact, Cécile Gariépy’s illustrations can be found all over the world, particularly in Belize and Norway. And until October 23rd you can admire his work on the twenty signs that decorate Sainte-Catherine Street between De Bleury and Saint-Laurent Boulevard.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
The panels are an eye-catcher.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
Cécile Gariépy has a unique style.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
The illustrator’s favorite panel.
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Quartier des spectacles asked the illustrator to customize the traffic sign codes with her unique style. “It is a dream project. For me, illustrating is: playing with codes that everyone understands and that are part of our daily lives. »
In an “understandable” look, the illustrator’s job is to capture a person’s attention, whether by amusing them, showing them an unexpected angle, or making them think, exposing them.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
Chez nous is the title of the mural by Cécile Gariépy that can be admired from the Décarie motorway. It was designed for the 50th anniversary of the Montreal Municipal Housing Office.
A distinctive style
In recent years, Cécile Gariépy has developed her own visual signature with her undulating and moving characters. As we walk together in front of the Place des Arts, we see a festival poster on which we have reproduced his style…
For the illustrator, it’s more flattering than annoying. “I drew when I was little,” she says. I didn’t think you could make a career out of it. » But his mother, who was a graphic designer, told him, “You even need someone to design a Kleenex box.”
PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, LA PRESS ARCHIVE
A garage embellished by Cécile Gariépy in an alley in the Villeray district
Cécile Gariépy has no training in fine arts. Instead, she studied communications and cinema. She took part in “The Escape Race Around the World” and worked as a television director before earning a master’s degree in cinema in Paris, where she began drawing. “I was searching for myself and started drawing my life,” she says.
When she posted her everyday drawings on Instagram, she had no idea that the agency LG2 would contact her for a Gastronomic Pleasures campaign. “My career changed and it became my job. »
Shortly thereafter, the New York Times commissioned an “editorial” illustration from him. Subsequently, Cécile Gariépy provided illustrations for Spotify, Aesop, Nylon magazine, etc.
When I first started, I couldn’t believe that people wanted me to draw for them. […] I like telling stories.
Cecile Gariepy
Since then, his “boys”, to use his words, have also embellished credit cards, shoes, beer cans, shops such as Décathlon, the Mont-Royal curling club and even the website of the town of Repentigny. “As much as I like advertising with a specific message that needs to be delivered quickly, I also like to balance it out with more free projects. »
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
Another panel by Cécile Gariépy in the Quartier des spectacles
When Cécile Gariépy accepts that her illustrations serve brands, the collaboration ends there. “My job is drawing. “I’m not an influencer,” explains the woman, who is represented in North America by the agency This Represents and in France by La Suite.
It is important to choose carefully what you do because it is indelible.
Cecile Gariepy
Collaboration with La Pastèque
While traveling in Japan, she said she was overcome with emotion when she happened to see one of her illustrations in an Apple Store – as the chain has done around the world. “I could never have imagined being seen by so many people. »
Cécile Gariépy is no longer in the “I can’t believe it” stage that she gets paid for her drawings, but she still pinches herself when she talks about illustration as her “job” and working with an art publisher like La Pastèque , with whom she illustrated several children’s books, including Coup de vent, Object perdu and Funny Sports: Olympic Curiosities (with La Presse journalist Simon Drouin).
She is currently working on a large graphic novel project for young people with Guillaume Corbeil. “It’s great to work with someone like him. It’s a table tennis game between him and me. I couldn’t do his job and he couldn’t do mine. Together we create something that is bigger than ourselves, and it is in this collaboration that my job takes on its meaning. »
Otherwise, Cécile Gariépy would like to go to Oslo, where she illustrated an important campaign for public transport. For her, it is something very rewarding to immerse herself in people’s everyday lives and even contribute to it, as she does with her wall works or her project in the Quartier des spectacles. “A picture can warm the heart like a smell,” she says so well.