Agathe Toman: the artist who feels in black and white
- Text by Alex King
- Photography by Agathe Toman
“I think and feel in black. I’d like the world to be black and white to be honest,” artist Agathe Toman explains.
Agathe’s striking black and white pieces have slowly been blowing up a storm, and now shes’s back for her second solo show, To The M O O N And Back, at Surfin Estate in France’s surf mecca, Hossegor.
“The title To The M O O N And Back comes from the French expression “I love you to the moon and back”, but in a less literal way”, she says. “It’s about feelings, the ones that change your life and yourself – positively or negatively. Those feelings that affect the rest of your existence, the events of the most extreme manner that occur in your life. Each of my illustrations or canvasses represent one thing that changed my life in a way, for good or for ill.”
Agathe first popped up on our radar with her moody skate cruisers and the new show features a variety of boards, each decked out in Agathe’s macabre black and white style. “I love the skateboard as an object in itself,” she explains. “Together with all of the environment and the lifestyle that surrounds skateboarding. Drawing on a deck is always an irregular medium, due to the veins of the wood. No two skateboards will react to ink in the same way.”
Agathe has branched out, using her signature style to create more abstract paintings on a range of mediums, from decks to huge canvases. Designing the cover art for French singer and composer Guillaume Grand’s latest album cover (above), allowed her style to evolve, with a ripped-apart/glitch effect. “I began to draw my “glitch moons” right after I finished his cover,” Agathe explains. “I’ve had an obsession with the moon for a long time, drawing them is a poetic reflection of myself, but I’ve never represented it in this way before. How I do it? It’s the same as the other illustrations I execute with the bic pen, a million strokes per minute!”
Find out more about Agathe Toman or check out To The M O O N And Back at Surfin Estate, Hossegor, 15 April from 19.00.
Latest on Huck
Meet Corbin Shaw, Huck 81’s Artist in Residence
The Sheffield born artist talks about the people and places that shaped his practice for the latest issue of Huck.
Written by: Josh Jones
The Blessed Madonna: “Dance music flourishes in times of difficulty”
The DJ talks about her debut album ‘Godspeed’, connection and resistance on the dance floor, the US election and more alongside exclusive pictures from her album release party.
Written by: Ben Smoke
Revisiting the birth of skate culture in 1970s Los Angeles
New photobook ‘Last Days of Summer: California Skateboarding Archive 1975–1978’ looks back at an iconic chapter of youth culture.
Written by: Miss Rosen
An unnerving portrait of the USA’s fractured society
A new photobook explores America’s increasing inequality, division and toxic culture wars in a historic election year.
Written by: Isaac Muk
“Music can save you for a day”: Touché Amoré on social media and subcultures
To celebrate a new album and reflect on a decade and a half of being themselves, frontman Jeremy Bolm chats about opening up via lyrics, subcultures in the internet age, and the hardcore re-revival.
Written by: Isaac Muk
Meet the Paratriathlete who cheated death twice
A near fatal training crash ruined British Paralympian George Peasgood’s Paris 2024 plans. As he recovers, his life and outlook are changing – will LA 2028 be part of his future?
Written by: Sheridan Wilbur