When you enter Margaux Soulac’s studio, located in the heart of Luxembourg’s old town, a stone’s throw away from the Place d’Armes dotted with cafés and restaurants, you’re immediately plunged into her world. Bright, cheerful colours, light streaming in through the bay window and a lovely atmosphere where the work of creation meets the pleasure of creating. Self-taught and happy to be so, Margaux has always loved drawing. After studying at business school, she made up her mind to become an illustrator. She finds her inspiration in cities, travelling, observing people, couples and families. She doesn’t necessarily try to convey a message in her illustrations, but rather to create an atmosphere, making viewers want to join in and identify with her characters. Influenced by street art, as well as by Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and pop art, she’s very proud to count in her family the Nabi painter George Lacombe, a friend of Pierre Bonnard and Félix Vallotton. So is it the spirit of her grandfather that inspires her to use so many warm, soft, vivid and pure colours? In any case, her characters are depicted in a multicoloured and luminous world that the painter would have appropriated himself.

Margaux Soulac’s illustration of Luxembourg is a place where city and nature share space harmoniously and where everyone works for the good of all within a framework that balances environmental, social and economic considerations. A few musical notes serve as a reminder of how important extracurricular disciplines are in the vision of education that the country promotes. As for the large wind turbines near the buildings in the Kirchberg business district, they create a landscape where finance and ecology come together around citizens’ eco initiatives. It’s a cheerful landscape that is perfectly suited to Margaux’s pencils.