ABOUT

 Amanda Mendiant is a painter, illustrator born (b.1975) and raised in Paris, to a swedish mother and a french father. After stays in Sweden, France and Spain she settles for the arctic north of Sweden with “un pied-a-terre” in Paris…

 Amanda has been drawing and painting as long as she can remember, she says and got primary known for merging french feminity, genders, nordic angularity and strong presence in portraits of women who have been her focus in the past 20 years.

Mid. 1990, an Arts&Crafts school and an Illustration&Design degree (Berghs Stockholm) in hand she starts to work in the skateboard business and this period has shown to be a significant influence in her early works.

Amanda then joins a leading web design bureau in Sweden as an illustrator but in 2003, breaks out to create her own company ”Amanda Mendiant – Art & Illustration”. A couple years later, a retail section called House Of Mendi is launched.

Today, Amanda Mendiant Art & Illustration is based on her own painted work, and projects, organizing exhibitions, commission works, art direction and has been teaching and consulting as creative director at the graphic design program at Luleå Technical University (LTU) since 2003.

Her topics remain being ”stills” with bodies softly intertwining and connecting. Larger figurative and colorful images that are rooted in the 90’s sub-culture she grew up in when medias and styles were mixed unrestricted. Naive meeting graffiti and collage.
With some artistic training but mostly self-taught and painting since 1990 her work is today: Back to basic. In representation and in the making as craftsmanship. It is Inclusive, Accessible and Suggestive by the bold colors, contrasts, textures and the simple human contact. At first glance… But the paintings are not as plain as they seem when you take the time to look closer.

As a former dancer, bodies have, for more than 20 years, been central in her work as she sees tools of expression and landscapes. Influenced, amongst others by painter Egon Schiele, but also an opposite like Pierre Soulages or sculptor Barbara Hepworth where structure and lines are fundamental. Amanda builds her compositions where odd details and contrasts, are keywords that keep nourishing her always evolving work.

With clients in the US and all over Europe, Amanda has, amongst others, collaborated with Vans (EU), Sessions (US), PHILIPS (swe), Icehotel (swe), DahlAgenturer (Stockholm swe), JUS (Stockholm swe), Grandpa (Stockholm/Göteborg swe), Clarion (swe), Studio Acusticum (swe).