Miss. Tic: the pioneer of street-art is dead, her work forever engraved on the walls of Paris

MISS TIC. The queen of street art passed away from illness on Sunday May 22, leaving behind many stencils painted on the walls of the capital since 1985.

[Mis à jour le 24 mai 2022 à 11h24] The street artist Miss. Tic died this Sunday, May 22, 2022 at the age of 66, carried away by cancer. “Accessible to all, her stencils were both funny and raunchy, tragic and romantic, tender and violent, modest and erotic. She tattooed our cities and our hearts with the scope of her words and the beauty of her drawings. The street was his gallery, the walker his visitor, our walls his canvas; his drawings whisperings that capture our attention for a moment, almost our ear”, can we read in a Press release of the Ministry of Culture, in homage to the deceased.

Miss. Tic died in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, where she lived and had her studio in Butte-aux-Caille. “I am so sad to learn of the death of this great poetess, philosopher, feminist. We had an exhibition of her works inside and outside the walls, at the Butte-aux-Cailles. It is this exhibition with the incredible success which also gave me the desire to develop street art in the district”, testifies the mayor of the 13th arrondissement Jérôme Coumet (DVG). The date of his funeral, “which will be, according to his wishes, open to the public”, will be specified later, it is announced on his official website.

A pioneer of street-art, her stencils of brunette and sexy women accompanied by sometimes poetic, sometimes political messages, remain forever engraved in the streets of Paris. “I came from street theatre, I liked this idea of ​​art in the street”, explained the artist in 2011 to AFP. Since 1985, Miss. Tic “adored Paris and dressed this city with his art, his thought”, entrusted Carine Rolland, assistant to the mayor of Paris in charge of Culture, to the Parisian. Feminist before the hour, we all came across her sentences in the capital of women in love but who certainly do not intend to let themselves be trodden on:

Miss. Tic died on Sunday May 22, 2022 in Paris at the age of 66, following an illness, her family announced to AFP. On her official Facebook page, the news is accompanied by a photo of her in her studio.

The stencil artist Jef Aérosol, from the first wave of street art like her in the 1980s, announces on her Instagram that she “fought against the disease with so much courage”. The mayor of the 13th arrondissement of Paris has announced that a street or a square will bear his name.

Who is Miss. Tic?

Real name Radhia Novat, Miss. Tic was born in Paris on February 20, 1956 to a Tunisian immigrant father and a Norman mother. She first grew up Montmartre, then his family moved to the Cité des aviateurs in Orly in 1964. In 1966, she lost her mother, her brother and her grandmother in a car accident. This tragic accident makes her a “necessary left-hander”. In 1972, when she was only 16, her father died of a heart attack. After studying applied arts, she moved to California in the 1980s and witnessed the birth of hip-hop and graffiti. Back in Paris in 1985, the visual artist and poet she had become began to line the walls of Paris with her art. An amorous spite inspires him with his first stencil on a wall of the 14th arrondissement of Paris: “I put on wall art to bombard words with hearts”.

What is the work of Miss. Tic?

Miss. Tic uses the spray stencil technique on the walls of the city of Paris. She began by illegally practicing street art at night, in 1985, on the walls of the districts of Montmartre, Ménilmontant, Marais, Montorgueil, Butte-aux-Cailles. In 1985, the artist posed his first stencil in a street of the 14th arrondissement. Very quickly, success is at the rendezvous: Agnès B notices her and opens the doors of her gallery to her.

After several arrests in flagrante delicto, a landlord wins a lawsuit against Miss. Tic, who was fined 22,000 francs in 1999. The artist then changed strategy: she asked permission from the owners of the walls on which she wanted to “poach”. She thus meets local residents’ associations, district town halls and shopkeepers, who very quickly support her. Since then, his works can be found both in galleries and on the walls of Paris.

But it was in the 2000s that the recognition of urban art by institutions came. Brands and gallery owners are finally interested in her work: she is finally exhibited and receives public commissions. She participates in contemporary art fairs in Venice and Miami.

In 2007, it entered the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. She realizes the poster of the film “The Girl Cut in Two” of the director Claude Chabrol. On March 8, 2011, his works appear in the stamps of La Poste on the occasion of Women’s Day. In 2013, she is designing the 5th line of the tramAgglomeration of Montpellier.

“She was a feminist and supportive of the cause of women, but in her own way, very free, independent and poetic. She was not an ideologue, but a deeply anarchist”, confide her stepchildren, Antoine and Charlotte Novat.

Miss. Tic, a name borrowed from Scrooge

Comic fan, Miss. Tic borrows his pseudonym from the character of the witch Miss Tick from “La bande à Picsou”, created by Carl Barks.