About - Amandine Emilie

Hello! I'm Amandine Emilie, a Belgian artist currently settled in Timisoara, north-west Romania.

I'm mainly working with linocut & printing since 2019.
I love drawing, painting; also enjoy doing a bit of pyrography from time to time, a bit of collage, a bit of sewing/stitching, knitting, papier-mâché making, stick & poke tattooing,
& what not. I'm curious as a cat.

After my degree in Art history, and all along sincerely, I felt frustrated to study art and not making any. While looking for a new path, somehow the stars aligned around 2016 when I decided to travel across the world, ended quite quickly in Romania and felt to stay a little bit. That's where I felt art I was an artist.

I'm not gonna make it long, just if you are curious about
who, how & why, here's some hints.

This is the first linocut I made in 2019, after my mother gave me her carving tools and a piece of rubber; my mother's an artist as well

My happy frog face when I'm wearing my Cosmic cat/Dreamer t-shirt

What's linocut in a very few words?

One more little stuff....
To me, creating in a minimal waste perspective is so important and recycling seems a natural thing to do.
I wanna align with nature and respect her. That way I believe we also respect ourselves

It's been 5 years from now, I still live in the same place in Romania and have been creating all kind of little stuffs since then.

Fresh ideas, fresh ink, a linoleum plate or carving rubber, some gouges/chisels, something to print on (paper, fabric, wood, etc), is pretty much what you need.

With that, you carve the linoleum with gouges to create a "matrix", which can later be used to print multiple times the same image!

In an ideal world, you'd use a press to print your matrix, but I use my hands and some random wooden tools.

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>>> if you'd like to read an interview I made in 2021 with Raluca Neagoe, for Safițicuminți (written in Romanian), here's the link

Collecting & transforming materials.
Also working with handmade recycled paper

Changing the perception of reused materials.
Creating beauty from scraps

Reusing & reconditioning old items,
and all kind of waste

Recycling

Beautifying

Upcycling

CRAFTING IN HARMONY
WITH NATURE

When I say
recycling / upcycling...

I recycle/upcycle all kind of materials I find and I work and create with them: pieces of papers from which I make smalls prints, bookmarks and notebooks, pieces of reused woods that I use as stamps's stands, second hand frames for framing my artprints, t-shirts, fabric, etc.
Most of it I find at the flea market, and I refurbish or adapt it for what I need.

As far as I can, I don't buy new wood for mounting custom stamps I offer, because I know too well the impact of wood cutting on forests over the world. I always try to reuse wood leftovers.
Also valid for other materials which have a negative impact on workers or on the planet.

I create mini series out of second hand material when I find something adequate.
Quite often I find material first, before knowing what I wanna do with it.
I try to combine pieces I got to make a series: series of tote bags, t-shirts, or notebooks made from paper leftovers.

I minimize my criteria, expectations and limits regarding projects.
This requests a certain mental flexibility: if I don't find the right material, I redirect myself toward what I can find, or even skip the idea and go for another project.

Any linoleum leftover's good for a miniature stamp.
I've begun to create mini stamps sets since December 2021: using leftovers of linoleum and corks as support, making seasonal stamps

I go for long lasting objects.
I don't want to produce more stuffs that will eventually go to the trash one day, where a lot ends (I'm referring to functional objects here). So I promote pieces that resist over time, and I warmly recommend to fix them or recycle them, or to give them to somebody else that would enjoy them (if you find yourself not wanting what you bought anymore).

I go as far as possible for natural materials, which have the potential to be recycled later on if needed, and don't pollute nature.
Regarding fabrics, I prefer cotton, hemp and linen, of good quality when possible. For stamps (except for linoleum as the matrix is concerned) I use wood leftovers to mount them.

I use eco-friendly packaging: I prefer not using plastic (and when I do, it's usually from upcycling), and I reuse as much as I can boxes and filling that I receive from retailers (who hopefully use as well more and more eco-friendly solutions).