Miss Tic, a French street artist whose work adorned the Parisian walls, passes away

Miss Tic, the street artist known for her graffiti art on the Parisian walls, passed away on May 22, 2022. Her work was dominated by figurative female protagonists in stencil-like visuals. Her visual arts practice began with thick textured black paint brush strokes across a large-scale stencil on the walls of Paris, France. What may appear to be a simple brushstroke creation, her work had enormous value and meaning for women around the world.

Miss Tic’s real name was Radhia Novat. Born in 1956, she wanted to be a poet but then realised that poetry is often accompanied by illustrations. Later, she focused her work on large stencil mural art with accompanying text.

"At first I thought, 'I am going to write poems'. And then, 'we need images' with these poems. I started with self-portraits and then turned towards other women," she asserted in an interview. Miss Tic, a plastic artist and poet who has been printing on Paris walls since 1985, creates a pictorial universe with her work. Her works speak of liberty, with drawings of everyday women and sharp sentences. Her entire body of work is built on a delicate balance of lightness and gravity, unconcern and provocation.

Miss Tic's paintings and wall graffiti art often included cunning wordplays and a heroine with flowing black hair who mirrored the artist herself, and the pieces became permanent fixtures on walls throughout the capital. Radhia Novat was the daughter of a Tunisian father and a Normandy mother. She grew up in the small lanes beneath the Sacre-Coeur cathedral. It was at the Basilica where she began particularly pervasive, sly and emancipatory slogans.

As her family commented, she died due to an unspecified illness at the age of 66. In art galleries as well as in public areas, she mixed lasting media and fleeting interventions. Regularly exhibited in galleries since 1986, in France and other places, asked for by the fashion circles (Kenzo, Louis Vuitton…), the movie world (in 2007 she designed the advertising poster of Claude Chabrol’s movie A Girl Cut in Two), Miss Tic also took part in the Petit Larousse' 2010 edition by illustrating words of French and she created in 2012 a book of 12 stamps for the French mail company, la Poste.

Some of her works have been purchased by the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Contemporary Art Fund of the City of Paris, the Ingres Museum, and the MUCEM. Shown at major contemporary art fairs, Miss Tic certainly stirred the art world with her work. Miss Tic's art was influenced by what lies in life and what exists within. Her works were directed at everyone, and the audience served as its regular and critical receiver.

The French artist's demise was mourned by other France originated artists too and thus they paid tribute to her work. Across social media platforms such as Twitter, her followers from the street art community also celebrated her work, calling her one of the founders of stencil art. Additionally, it was stated by the followers that the walls of the 13^th arrondissement of Paris - where her works are a common sight - "will never be the same again". Miss Tic’s colleagues who stayed along with her through her final stage of illness posted another tribute on Instagram stating that she fought the illness with courage. And France’s newly appointed Culture Minister, Rima Abdul Malak, saluted her “iconic, resolutely feminist” work.

Her family has stated that her funeral will be open to the public.