Aiste Stancikaite

Indulge in the exquisite pencil drawings of the Lithuanian-born, Bristol-based, illustrator

Responding to contemporary fashion’s uniformity can often prove challenging, but Aiste Stancikaite’s exceptional pencil drawings demonstrate that fashion need not be simply a realm of glamour and hyper-femininity. Rather, references to “timelessness, purism of structure and architectural approach[es] to product design and fashion” cast Aiste’s subjects in an understated, almost androgynous light. The results are produced with pencil, the unpretentiousness of which Aiste cherishes: “It’s amazing how something so simple can produce a really strong image, if done right.”

Where these portraits truly excel is with the addition of minimal digital touches, each of which bring a balance to their respective compositions, the digital and analogue complimenting each other’s “shape, texture, style and context”. Such attention to detail is arguably a consequence of her experience at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vilnius, where Aiste and her classmates “would paint and draw for at least 7 hours a day, five days a week.” Along the same lines, an exchange to the Willem de Kooning Academie in Rotterdam reinforced sustained conceptual development, ensuring that the complexity, structure and beauty of her human subjects is constantly translated successfully into Aiste’s drawings.

Adding to these experiences, a forthcoming ‘micro-residency’ will see Aiste working with maps and documenting the local area with detailed drawings, a project which could easily have been designed purely with Aiste’s skillset in mind.

stancikaite.com