Jana Brike is an artist from Riga (Latvia, small country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe). Inspired by her children book illustrations, the Russian realism, Soviet animation masters or renaissance master’s biblical paintings. She creates powerful and strange imagery of ordinary scene of daily life twisted in some surreal universe. Her paintings are beautifully haunted with a particular interest to identity, sexuality or any emotional landscape.
Jana Brike has exhibited his work all through Europe as well as in several parts of the US.

Fideli Sundqvist is a graphic designer living and working in Stockholm since 2006. Beautiful paper constructions, set design, paper cuts, illustrations and products. Fideli Sundqvist is exploring different styles with much success. Represented by Agent Molly & Co.

Nicolas Nemiri is a French comic author and illustrator, early influenced by masters like Moebius or Pratt and who also have a true passion for Japanese comics. Nicolas Nemiri has developped a very mature and sensitive style through different journeys in Japan and China and he publishes drawings on his personal blog. Represented by “agence Patricia Lucas”.

Ahnna Lim is an artist working as a freelancer illustrator in Toronto, Canada. Her work is about picture books, narrative illustrations and fashion illustrations with nice vector or line drawings and paintings. Ahnna Lim is a very versatile illustrator who obviously likes to experiment new techniques.

Mayumi Otero was born from a Spanish father and Japanese mother. Passionate by printing techniques, and inspired by popular imagery and contemporary design, she is a co-founder of Editions Icinori (with Raphael Urwiller).

Marina Coudray is a French artist doing great characters with a manga inspiration. She works as a set designer for a game as well as various multimedia projects called Wakfu. She also works on comics and children books as personal work.

Hikari Shimoda is a young artist from Nagano, Japan. She creates beautiful emotional paintings with a very unique style.

Raphaël Urwiller is a French illustrator, being one half of the Icinori graphic studio (with Mayumi Otero). He creates gorgeous limited edition hand-printed, hand-cut prints and books, using two or three colours process. His work is usually made of simple drawings, overlaid colours and patterns.

Elod Beregszaszi has just released a Japanese Tea House (Tsunami Relief). This origamic architecture card (hand folded and signed), dimensions: 144mm x 103mm when closed 
(envelope supplied) cost only £10.00, free postage, all profits go to those made homeless by the tsunami in Japan. I’ve just received mine and it’s really a cool little help for Japan!

Elod Beregszaszi is a great artist and paper-engineer. He recently has joined our project « Paper Art trends » and is now featuring in the free iPhone and iPad app. Here is a short interview to learn a bit more about Popupology…

Who are you?
My name is Elod Beregszaszi, I am a paper creative living and working in London and Budapest.

How did you come to work with paper?
Always loved paper as a tactile material, and so when I discovered the potential of paper folding I became immediately hooked. Books by Masahiro Chatani got me started in OA (origamic architecture) about 12 years ago and I have been experimenting ever since.

Can you describe your work, your personal style ?
Technically speaking my work is not classified as origami as my designs utilise cuts along with folds.
I am most interested in collapsible “concertina” models which retain an element of kinetic play through the structure. Essentially the aim is to work from a single sheet of paper with no waste and no gluing, using the economy of means to achieve balanced forms that shift between 2 and 3 dimensions.

What adjectives do you use when speaking of paper?
In a word tactile. The most enjoyable part of the process is the folding and the “teasing” of the paper into the desired shape. It’s all about touch and working in collaboration with the material.

What do you prefer in what you do?
Pretty much every stage from the design (drawing) to the final “collapse” is a joy, the experience is dynamic, meditative and absolutely fulfilling.

In your imagination, is paper hot or cold?
Cold paper warmed by the fingertips.

Elodie is a French fashion and portrait illustrator. After three years working for the animation industry, she decided to work as a free-lance. Elodie’s illustrations are exhibited in the USA, Canada and France. She has worked for Cosmopolitan, So’ Chic magazine and Paulette magazine among others. She is represented by creasenso.fr for France and by Illustration Room for Australia.