Sonriso Studio
Intercru recently spoke with artist Marion Bretagne about her risography studio in Madrid, Sonriso Studio. Marion told us about her career and why she started her studio.
Originally I come from Brittany in France, but then I moved to Scotland to study literature, before moving to Spain to work in editorial design for a gallery, and then going freelance. None of it really makes a lot of sense, and being self-taught in design/art at first gave me a lot of doubts, but I am starting to get over it and I also try to remind myself to keep having fun, and not take myself seriously because I think that’s when I do my best work.
So Sonriso Studio is a risography studio and small independent press for micro edition art publications that I founded this year in 2020 in Madrid.
My work is always full of colors and I really loved the technique but couldn’t find a place to print in Madrid. When I went freelance in 2019, I decided to start the studio. I had always wanted to go into entrepreneurship and so I just kind of jumped in and bought the machine second hand. Although I barely knew how to use it and I made mistakes, I learned quickly and a couple months later I felt conformable enough to open the studio.
Risography is a technique that works like screen printing in that it is a duplicator that works by creating stencils and printing one color at a time. The superimposition of colors creates new ones and so you can play a lot. The ink is soy-based and give a really bright, grainy effect that makes any design really fun and amazing!
In the last 10 years it’s had a come back on the design/illustration scene as a technique that allows artists to play with colors and images. There are quite a few riso studios all over the world now, some of them are very professional and have 20 different colors. I own four colors for now: Fluorescent Pink, Blue, Black, and Yellow.
I would love to grow the studio to do more collaborations with artists, exhibitions, and workshops but more than anything I want to keep it a very fun, human, and collaborative space: this is my favorite part about this small business.
Now, I’m not working on Sonriso full-time; I mostly work as a creative designer/illustrator for clients, and I am starting to sell paintings and prints too.
Most of my work I make by hand in a very spontaneous way. I’m a very energetic, intuitive, and positive person, and that’s usually what I’ve been told comes out of my works: mostly the monoprints, which is a technique that uses the screens from screenprinting, but on which you paint directly, really quickly (usually you have around 4 minutes) as the ink dries, which forces you as an artist to be as intuitive and spontaneous as can be.
Photos from project Gracias Por Su Visita by Joseph Fox and Lizzie Frost, printed in risography
Illustration printed in two colors risography by Lucia Alonso
Marion Bretagne is a French artist based out of Madrid. To see more of her artwork, you can follow her on Instagram @marionbretagne. If you want to learn more about her risography studio, you can check out the website sonrisostudio.es or you can follow the studio on Instagram @sonrisostudio.
