Visual identity for 2023

Every year since 2018, Jazz à Vienne and the Angoulême International Comics Festival have collaborated to produce the visual for the Jazz à Vienne poster.

A partnership between Jazz à Vienne and the Angoulême International Comics Festival

After Brüno, Jacques de Loustal, Juanjo Guarnido and Audrey Spiry, illustrator Pénélope Bagieu has been invited to produce the visual for the this year’s edition of the festival!

Pénélope Bagieu, illustrator

In 2007, Pénélope Bagieu launched ‘Ma vie est tout à fait fascinante’ (‘My life is absolutely fascinating’), an illustrated blog providing charming, witty glimpses into the daily life of a young Parisienne that truly hit the nail on the head. Not long after, the print version flew off the shelves. She would go on to imagine the adventures of Joséphine and have her illustrations published in the press and in adverts. In 2010, she released her first long narrative, ‘Cadavre exquis’ (‘Exquisite corpse’) and then her first biography, entitled ‘California Dreamin’’ (Harvey Award 2018). In 2016, she bolstered the feminist dimension of her work through the publication of ‘Culottées’ (‘Brazen’), a series of women’s portraits. It met with resounding success: the two volumes of ‘Culottées’ have been translated into twenty languages; they also won an Eisner Award in 2019 and an animated version was produced for France TV. In 2020, the author turned to a younger audience, brilliantly revisiting Roald Dahl’s novel, ‘The Witches’.

The poster for 2023

‘Until quite recently, I felt intimidated by jazz, because I had mistakenly presumed that it was only for connoisseurs. My mind was changed by Jazz à Vienne’s illustrated concerts and by sharing the stage with China Moses in 2017. I already knew about Jazz à Vienne at the time given its strong ties with the Angoulême International Comics Festival. It’s impossible to be a regular at Angoulême and not to have heard about Jazz à Vienne. I had also admired the festival’s posters. Every year, these are illustrated by comic artists. Two years ago, I took part in the ‘40 Bulles De Jazz’ (‘40 Bubbles of Jazz’) exhibition at the festival by contributing an illustration of a ‘piano-woman’ that I greatly enjoyed making! This year, I'm honoured to have been asked to create the visual for the 2023 edition of the Jazz à Vienne festival. I like the culture behind these posters and the challenge. To get the message across in a split second, you’ve got to think in terms of splashes of strong colours. For this year’s visual, I decided I wanted to illustrate a ‘woman-orchestra’. I wanted to see what kinds of clothes and costumes I associated with musical instruments. I decided to go with the vinyl as a large tuft of hair and with the piano as a necklace, all the while preserving the very hand-sketched, charcoal look to the piece.’ - Pénélope Bagieu

Pénélope Bagieu