Street art legend Miss.Tic dies aged 66

Miss.Tic, whose provocative illustrations began cropping up in the Montmartre neighbourhood of Paris in the mid-80s and made her a pioneer of French street art, died Sunday aged 66, her family told AFP.

Radhia Novat grew up in the narrow streets in the shadow of Sacre-Coeur basilica, the daughter of a Tunisian father and a mother from Normandy in western France, where she began stencilling sly and emancipatory slogans.

Her family said she died of an unspecified illness.

Miss.Tic’s work often included sly wordplays — almost always lost in translation — and a heroine with flowing black hair, who resembled the artist herself, and the images became fixtures on walls across the capital.

“I had a background in street theatre, and I liked this idea of street art,”

Miss.Tic said in a 2011 interview.

“At first I thought, ‘I’m going to write poems’. And then, ‘we need images’ with these poems. I started with self-portraits and then turned towards other women,”

she said.

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EARLY DAYS OF MISS TIC

A typical example from her early days: “I shook your nights with each compromise.”

Her works were soon shown in galleries in France and abroad, with some acquired by the Paris modern art fund of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, according to her website.

Miss.Tic also drew the attention of law enforcement over complaints of defacing public property, leading to an arrest in 1997, and for a spell she was a favourite of fashion brands such as Kenzo and Louis Vuitton.

“I often use the modern woman, the one they show us in fashion and advertising. So often it’s not understood that you can be young and beautiful and have things to say,”

she told AFP in 2011.

“But it’s true that they sell us what they want with beautiful women. So I thought, I’m going to use these women to sell them poetry.”

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© Agence France-Presse