There is something eerily empty in Marie Mohanna’s illustrations. Her colorful landscapes are geometric and lifeless – a world stripped of its people.
“I like mystery, bizarre and eerie things,” she said in a recent interview with the online magazine wertn. “In most of my works, there’s no one in the scene. I try to create an ambiance with the color palette, the elements and the composition. The whole thing creates a strange scenery where the viewer is free to imagine everything they want to in it. For me, suggesting is stronger than showing, and that’s how I try to work.”
Growing up on Sailor Moon, Fist of the North Star, and Pokemon, her creations indeed seem like empty comic strips. “When I started, I didn’t have preconceptions or rules,” she admitted. “I didn’t have a trained eye, and no idea of what I wanted to become. There was so much to discover. I started to work in black and white because it was easier, I wasn’t very interested in details. But then, I started to use bright colors and never stopped since. My work got more realistic, more detailed and more finished. Now I think I’ve found my way of working and my style has become stable.”
Check out some of her intriguing creations in the gallery below.
