The Film Experience

Curio is our fan art appreciation column. Curated by Nathaniel R

Up until about last month* we had an incredibly sound theory that had NEON released Celine Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) as originally expected in the fall of last year OR pushed it back fully to its rescheduled February release without that pesky "one week qualifier" that the film would have been a solid Oscar success. In either scenario we believe it could have scored Best Director and Best Cinematography and maybe even Best Actress nominations.

As it was, positioned haphazardly between film years whilst NEON was (justifiably) distracted with making the miracle of Parasite's Oscar success possible, Portrait had to settled for halfsies...

Half of its passionate -- one might even say spiritually devout -- fanbase caught on prior the Oscar nominations (where it received BAFTA and Globe nominations for Foreign Film) and now a much larger and arguably even more obsessed fanbase is growing daily in 2020 now that the film is streaming.

It was quite obviously a film that would find a large niche fanbase and it just needed time to do so. One group that is obviously extremely passionate about the movie are artists (especially female artists) so we thought we'd share some glorious fan art. We hope you enjoy and maybe follow or buy from these artists (though sadly several of them don't have shops... or at least aren't linking to them)...

I didn’t expect so many likes and comments 😭🙏Wanna thank you all for your kind words and encouragements❤️Here is the progress video of this drawing 🙏 Thank you everyone 🙆‍♀️ pic.twitter.com/PsQKEoK3tB
— I̶D̶A̶ (@CheckPointSSS) December 31, 2019

Isn't this amazing? In progress artwork like this shared by an account called I̶D̶A̶ @CheckpointSSS can be such a jaw-dropping joy to watch (sadly the artist doesn't share their name when asked how to credit this piece on twitter... so this is all we know about them: that they made this and they're talented.

Steven Tzé

This portrait of everyone's favourite French lesbian portrait subject is by Steven Tzé and it was part of a "Portrait of a Lady Challenge" in which some artists tasked themselves with drawing the title character from memory, quickly. You can learn more about Tzé at his official site.

by Spicy Baguette

Here's a fun take by an artist who calls herself Spicy Baguette.

by noyersinthedark

Here's one humorously titled "Me and da homies, Brittany, France (18th century)" by noyers in the dark.

Color us impressed. Ria Grix made a miniature downloadable recreation of a the reception room in Portrait that you can print and then fold into a 3 day room!

ContourBrode is super niche and we love that. The concept is queer film characters hand-embroidered. This artist is from France and you can get these embroidered line drawings on tote bags. Other movies featured are Moonlight, Brokeback, Call Me By Your Name, Happy Together... the list goes on.

by LesboPrints

This painting is on sale from Lesbo Prints. Alas, we don't know the artist's name.

by eromnid

Here's a digital painting from eromnid .

And because we love useful art (and coffee), let's include two coffee mug options.

This one's very blue like the mood the movie will (deliciously) put you in. This is from Kiki at JuniorHighPress.

And here's one from Scraft1980

@marycereal
portrait of a lady on fire... but on animal crossing ##acnh ##portraitofaladyonfire ##animalcrossing ##fyp ##animalcrossingnewhorizons ##poalof
♬ Vivaldi Storm - 2CELLOS

and enjoy this Animal Crossing Portrait recreation from TikTok's Mary Cereal

And for this final batch...
I think these are all by downtonzoe since they're on her twitter account and she's inspirationally-obsessed with the movie (and Adele Haenel). She's a prolific/terrific talent. Here are Heloise and Marianne imagined in different eras and scenarios.

Anyway I'm not entirely sure on who downtonzoe is since I can't find a website or links for art sales even though she's clearly making things to sell (lots of pins and stickers of these characters, too, shared on twitter)...

P.S. There's also this unexpected Adele Haenel toonage below (click)! But some reason she credits herself as Gu on this self-generating animation thing ? It can sometimes be difficult on the internet to determine what is happening and who is who and whatnot but we try since we love fan art and believe it should always be shared with a proper credit.

retourne-toi

* we say "up until last month" because obviously no theories are sound about what might happen for this year's Oscars since everything is in total chaos given the theatrical shutdown.