Explore Marseille’s vibrant streets with the warming illustrations of Emilie Seto

By embracing intuition, the illustrator has crafted a recognisable style that's filled with texture and colour.

Date
17 May 2023

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Meet Emilie Seto, an editorial illustrator hailing from Lyon, France, now based in the vibrant city of Marseille. With a unique approach to her work, Emilie divides her time between creating digital illustrations for the press and various commissions, and drawing the picturesque landscapes and bustling streets of Marseille with pencils.

For Emilie, drawing Marseille is more than just a creative outlet – it's a way to connect with others and explore new worlds she never would have imagined otherwise. Her major creative influence is the city itself – “its harsh and beautiful surface”, she says – as well as the noisy colourful streets filled with cars.

Despite not considering herself a skilled technician, Emilie's unique perspective and signature style have made her work stand out. “My perspectives are always kind of silly,” Emilie explains. “I flourished when I stopped trying so hard to draw ‘right’ and instead found my very own logic.” By embracing her own intuition when it comes to image making, she has created a body of work that captures the essence of Marseille. Rich, textural colours give Emilie’s work a feeling of navigating a permanent vacation, a somewhat elusive yet familiar feeling. In fact, it's hard to resist diving into one of Emilie’s illustrations and luxuriate in its tranquillity all day.

Emilie's work is now gaining international recognition with a series of exhibitions currently taking place in Chengdu and Shenyang, China. As she continues to push the boundaries of her craft and explore new ways of creating, we can't wait to see what she comes up with next.

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Emilie Seto: Marseille Landscape (Copyright © Emilie Seto, 2022)

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Emilie Seto: Priyanka Chopra (Copyright © Emilie Seto, 2020)

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Emilie Seto: Marseille Landscape (Copyright © Emilie Seto, 2021)

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Emilie Seto: Simon Doonan (Copyright © Emilie Seto, 2020)

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Emilie Seto: Marseille Landscape (Copyright © Emilie Seto, 2021)

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Emilie Seto: Marseille Landscape (Copyright © Emilie Seto, 2020)

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Emilie Seto: Landscape (Copyright © Emilie Seto, 2021)

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Emilie Seto: Diane Von Furstenberg (Copyright © Emilie Seto, 2020)

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Emilie Seto: Landscape (Copyright © Emilie Seto, 2021)

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Emilie Seto: Landscape (Copyright © Emilie Seto, 2022)

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Emilie Seto: Landscape (Copyright © Emilie Seto, 2022)

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Emilie Seto: Le Monde (Copyright © Emilie Seto, 2020)

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Emilie Seto: Marseille Landscape (Copyright © Emilie Seto, 2021)

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About the Author

Joey Levenson

Joey is a freelance design, arts and culture writer based in London. They were part of the It’s Nice That team as editorial assistant in 2021, after graduating from King’s College, London. Previously, Joey worked as a writer for numerous fashion and art publications, such as HERO Magazine, Dazed, and Candy Transversal.

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