Ones to Watch 2016: Artist and illustrator Louisa Gagliardi

Louisa Gagliardi’s surreal digital illustrations and artworks are visually and conceptually layered, with skewed perspectives and dusty, sunset tones that create a sense of warped three-dimensionality. We first featured her work in 2012 when, as a graduate from Switzerland’s Ecole cantonal d’art de Lausanne, she had designed a visual introduction to the ECAL experience that utilised her vector illustrations of college hardware and set them in considered grids and crisp layouts.

Since then she has been designing brilliant publications for Kodoji Press, as well as various exhibition catalogues and honing her skills as an illustrator, working with Mousse , Wallpaper* and The Fader among others. Louisa has also been developing personal projects, making artworks for exhibitions which will be her focus come 2016.

From January Louisa will be living in Paris while she completes a six-month residency at the Foundation Suisse, and occasionally commutes back to Switzerland to teach on the graphic design programme at ECAL. Having lived in Zurich for three years, she is looking forward to speaking French again. “Paris is a beautiful city,” she says. "I’m looking forward to the amazing French food!”

Having never shared a studio before, Louisa says that she is a little nervous. “I don’t like showing my work before I’m totally satisfied with it,” she explains. "Sharing a space might be a good challenge for me.” As art is relatively new territory for Louisa, she says she’ll be pushing herself to“rethink my practice and approach.” She adds: “It’ll be extremely positive for my work.”

The residency will involve developing exhibition projects, and while there she will be collaborating with photographer Manon Wertenbroek on a publication, with artist Adam Cruces on an exhibition and on a project with fashion designer Vanessa Schindler. In February she will also be showing at the Tomorrow Gallery in New York. “There are still so many amazing people I would love to collaborate with, but I don’t want to jinx anything by mentioning any more names,” She says.