Illustrator Jill Senft creates fun and whimsy with her cavalcade of pink characters

Berlin-based illustrator Jill Senft enjoys painting “funny faces and absurd situations” with a degree of exaggeration in every brushstroke. “Perspectives aren’t always accurate in my work, which also serves as a dimension of abstraction at times,” explains Jill. The illustrator’s style is simple, colourful and funny and her most recent works have developed out of using acrylics as her medium. “I always wanted to try it but didn’t because I was a bit stuck to my marker before, which I loved since I first started illustrating,” says Jill. Using paint allows Jill to create wonderful textures within her works, animating her characters even more. “[Using acrylics] I can let colours fade into one another or mix them up as I like but most importantly: painting with acrylics gives me a feeling of freedom and independence as I can play around and overpaint existing parts at any time,” she says.

“My work is inspired by almost everything I come across. When things catch my attention I often use my work as an outlet for the impressions in my head.” Jill’s approach to her work is intuitive in that she often “illustrates before I think, which isn’t always a bad thing”. “Often I have an idea in my mind but while painting my mind and and start all over again on top of it,” says Jill. “Sometimes it’s necessary to kill your darlings to reach better results. That’s part of the process.”

Jill’s work varies from individual images to short stories and weekly paintings, using unlikely inspirations as material like in Box of Everything where inanimate objects come to live and wreak absurd havoc. “It’s nice when people get the sense of the story or single scene I try to tell but it’s also not always necessary,” says Jill. “Maybe they get the atmosphere, they wonder or they have to laugh about it, which also works for me.”