Maaike Canne celebrates modernist architecture

Based in Rotterdam, visual artist and illustrator Maaike Canne is surrounded by interesting buildings. It’s no wonder then that she’s intrigued by architecture, and that this interest finds its way into her work. Whilst many of the buildings in Maaike’s artworks are imagined, for her Architect Series she focusses on real-life works by some of her favourite architects – Le Corbusier and Richard Neutra, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Gio Ponti – recreating their designs in stylish, detailed digital illustrations. "Just like art, architecture is about stories,” she tells Wrap. "I’m attracted to it because of its language of shapes, space, size, and the stories it holds.”

When creating her images, Maaike likes to mix up her mediums, from working with bright acrylic paints, or pencil and paper, to using her iPad and computer to create digital compositions. "The vibrancy of the colours of gouache paint on paper is so satisfying,” she explains. "Drawing on the iPad makes me less careful, because it’s so easy to erase, move and scale things. Because of this, it allows me to make more mistakes, and learn from it.”

But whether working with bright paints, or with the flexibility of the iPad, Maaike enjoys mimicking the contrast of shapes which occur in our everyday spaces. She combines the strict lines and geometric repetitions of manmade elements with the delicate unpredictability of natural shapes – plants and flowers, clouds and sea. "I have a love for structured compositions; for repetition and the ordering of space which is found in things like bricks or planks of wood,” she says. "But buildings can be a bit cold, so the combination of these stricter elements with flowing natural shapes makes it feel warmer.”

While Maaike’s illustrations are a celebration of modernist architecture, with cool functionalism and scanty ornamentation, she nonetheless relishes the opportunity that studying buildings gives her to immerse herself in ideas of narrative and the past. "Contemplating architecture allows you to step into a piece of history or a story and become part of it,” she says. "How cool is that?! It’s like keeping history alive while looking to the future.”

––––––––––––

maaikecanne.com / @maaike_canne