Born in France in 1975, with a French father and English mother, YZ (pronounced: ‘eyes’) is the first Street Artist to be invited to design “Mariane”—the allegorical figure for the French Republic that appears on French stamps; President Emmanuel Macron unveiled the design on July 19, 2017. Well-known for her poetic portraits and one of the most active female artists in France’s Street Art scene, YZ inherited a love of art from her parents—one a ceramicist, the other a sculptor. In 2000, along with other artists, she began to spray paint portraits on the gray walls of the French capital. She quickly felt, however, a need to move beyond painting: she wants to tell stories. YZ began her studies with a focus on the audiovisual, focusing first on sound, and then moving into images, film editing and production. She spent several years working on documentaries, all the while continuing to draw and paint…
Her first major project dates from March 2003, when she took over the streets of Paris with “OPEN YOUR EYES” : 30 portraits in XXL format placed on electric poles and on dilapidated walls all around Paris. She reprised the project in capitals around the world, notably in New York, Berlin, London, Moscow, Brazzaville, Bamako and Hong Kong. YZ’s work has been shown in museums and galleries, including the Fondation Cartier, the Pompidou Center, the Magda Danysz Gallery, and the Fondation Blachère.