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An illustration of three fingers with long, white nails against a bright red background. The fingers are a vibrant green with thick black shadows beneath them.

Illustrator MVM pays homage to the humble fingernail in his vibrant new personal project

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Date
29 April 2013

If I was ever asked to compile a complete taxonomy of body parts ranked in order of preference, I would probably question what my life had become. But then when I got cracking it’s fair to say that fingernails would feature towards the bottom of my list, down there with their toe-y counterparts and underarm hair. But this kind of imagination failure is why I’m not a brilliant illustrator, and MVM, aka Magnus Voll Mathiassen, is. He not only saw a certain beauty in fingernails, he built an entire new project around them and the results are superb, using his trademark vibrant colour palette to create an unlikely anatomical star.

I was lucky enough to meet Magnus when he was in London for the opening of the wonderful Hugo & Marie show at KK Outlet and I can confirm he is a throughly nice chap with a dark, dark taste in music. He also tells me that this may be the start of a series based on various body parts, so watch this space!

An illustration of a hand with long, bright yellow nails. The fingers are rendered in a pale pink against a muted grey background.
Above

MVM: Fingernails

An abstract illustration of overlapping organic shapes in coral, mint green, and pale yellow. The forms are set against a dark grey background with a black curve in the top right.
Above

MVM: Fingernails

An illustration of a hand with pale purple nails. The figure is rendered in flat shapes of orange and dark green against a pale pink background.
Above

MVM: Fingernails

An illustration of several fingers with long, black-painted nails. The fingers are rendered in bold orange and deep purple shapes against a pale blue background.
Above

MVM: Fingernails

An illustration of several long, slender fingers with bright red nails. The figures are rendered in a flat, stylised manner with bold green and black outlines against a pale mint background.
Above

MVM: Fingernails

An abstract illustration of colourful, rounded shapes on a dark olive green background. The organic forms in green, orange, pink, blue and red curve around the edges of the frame.
Above

MVM: Fingernails

An abstract illustration of organic, flowing shapes on a pale beige background. A thick, wavy red line contains a pink form and a white zig-zagging shape, with a large dark blue curve below.
Above

MVM: Fingernails

An illustration of three green fingers with white nails against a bright red background. The figures are rendered in a flat, graphic style with bold black outlines.
Above

MVM: Fingernails

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About the Author

Rob Alderson

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Rob Alderson is a freelance writer, editor and strategist. He was previously editor-in-chief of It’s Nice That and WePresent, and editor of Design Week. He publishes the newsletter Undo, which tries to make sense of how AI is changing design work, the design process and the design industry.

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