You probably have already seen her flowery heads’ women throughout San Francisco. We owe these elegant and feminine silhouettes, the “blooming thoughts ladies” to Amélie de Cirfontaine aka @amillionair.
“Is she a millionaire?” is the question that perhaps comes to your mind !! “I would love to!” Amélie replied with a smile when we met her in her North Beach studio. She just owes her artist’s name to the 50 Cents’ song…
Citizen of the world, she grew up in New York, Morocco, Mauritius then studied in Boston. With a dual curriculum in art and marketing, Amélie defines herself as a jack-of-all-trades. She moved to San Francisco three years ago, a week before she graduated. Wondering about her future plans, and whether or not to stay on the East Coast, she discovered herself a great aunt in San Francisco who was an artist too!
Following only her instincts, she gathered her belongings and moved West in less than a week! Since she’s not a millionaire … living in San Francisco comes at a price: she works as a marketing consultant but her growing desire is to make art, again and again. Being hosted and helped by her great-aunt artist Martine Jardel inspires her; she wants to devote herself to her art as much as possible.
This is how, gradually, she tries and discovers new techniques. With a major in sculpture, she is more oriented towards the abstract but gradually explores the figurative and gives
birth to her “blooming thoughts ladies”.
She begins by pasting them (wheat pasting technique) in small format on various surfaces across the city, always with a little apprehension. Then the pandemic with all the boarded storefronts offered her a phenomenal playground across the city. Not only is the territory multiplied, but also the size of her art!
She then approaches shops and restaurants to ask for permission to stick her art on their boards. Then it is the street artist Yonmeister who suggests to her to paint her ladies in a larger size. He then taught her the technique of stenciling, and so she made her first large-format Lady on the boards of the Zuni café.
Attracted by the scale of the frescoes, fascinated by the artist JR who had come to present his Chronicles of San Francisco at SFMOMA, she multiplies her interventions throughout the city.
She quickly realizes that it is a unique opportunity to carry her message … in a big way.
She wants to make women visible as street artists. She enjoys painting during the day and showing the young girls who pass by that women can also be street artists. It is no coincidence that her characters are also women. She specifies “it is also important for me that they are elegant and chic as it is not incompatible with street art”.
Finally, she praises the solidarity of San Francisco street artists, how they seek to move forward together; she cites, in particular Kate Tova, Fnnch, Seibot, Louinova.
Amélie is available for projects on commission, indoor or outdoor, or why not on roofs. She is indeed looking for a rooftop to complete a project. https://www.ameliedecirfontaine.com
