BIOGRAPHY
Biography of Erika Cool
The work of Erika Cool investigates the power and enduring presence of the iconic image in the contemporary culture.
Her immediately recognizable portraits evoke figures from cinema, music, or the public imagination, without ever being simply a reference.
In Cool’s work, the icon is not reproduced:
It is reactivated, imbued with a sensitive attention and empathy that seem to reflect the artist herself—a discreet icon in her own right—projected into each face.
The directness of the gazes, the precision of the contours, and the chromatic saturation create a subtle tension between familiarity and detachment.
The viewer thinks they recognize something, but something resists—a sparkle in the gaze, a shift in color, a singular vibration, that of the artist. The image becomes both a pictorial surface and a space for projection, as if Roland Barthes’s punctum were unfolding in color and matter, striking the viewer with a feeling that is both intimate and universal.
The references to Pop Art are evident: bold colors, frontal composition, the monumentality of the figure. But Erika Cool subverts these codes; far from highlighting overconsumption or the massification of the image, she puts them at the service of an affective approach.
Where Pop Art historicized the image as a cultural product, Erika treats it as personal memory, bringing out the intimate behind the icon.
The metallic colors, the play of light, and the technical layering create a rich and vibrant texture, contrasting with the almost photographic sharpness of the faces and giving the work as a whole a sense of both flatness and depth.
This is neither a nostalgic homage nor an ironic critique; her works open up an intermediate space where the popular image unfolds, isolated and reinvented, inviting the viewer to rediscover it.
I was already drawing on the school benches...
When my mother asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would answer: AN ARTIST!
And my mother would always reply that being an artist wasn't a real job!
I became a fashion designer anyway because for my mum, who was a simple seamstress, that was a profession.
Later, I became a photo model and actress, and I always painted or drew, giving my works to those who liked them. My mum had said it wasn't a profession, so I didn't feel legitimate.
Over the years, I sometimes painted sensitive subjects such as the Bataclan attack or, as if by premonition, the Covid virus, and also under the influence of anger or mockery.
All this often had sexual connotations, no doubt a remnant of my short career in erotica.
My mentors were undoubtedly Felix Labisse and Alain Aslan (for whom I posed in 1978).
In 2022, as a tribute to my friend Brigitte Lahaie, I created the actress's first self-portrait for her birthday.
Following this experience, at the request of Brigitte Lahaie's publisher, I undertook a complete series in her image, which I exhibited in Paris in May 2024 during the launch of her latest book: Lahaie par Brigitte.
Since then, I haven't stopped creating my glamorous POP-realist style.
My narrative approach and cultural references reinforce this style.
Hugo Tanghe describes it as: combining realism and pop brilliance, Erika Cool explores the light of emotions through iconic and expressive faces. Inspired by contemporary culture, fashion and music, she creates a bridge between timeless glamour and visual modernity.
‘I like to paint the inner light of women, that intensity that you don't always see but can feel.’ –
Erika Cool