This year, Mickey celebrates his 90th birthday! In collaboration with Disney France and Quai 36, I had the pleasure to make the iconic mouse my own. The work will adorn the walls of Bordeaux, with over 30 Mickeys hiding in the city. The same event, with other local artists, takes place in Paris, Lyon and Marseille. The most active city in the Mickey hunting, measured via #mickey90 and #Bordeaux, will win an exclusive Disney event to celebrate even more this birthday.
In 2014, I had a dream where I could immerse my hands inside the screen of an old B&W TV, tweaking the body of a poor Steamboat Willie-era Mickey, eventually turning him into a kind of centaur freak. Reflecting on the character's legendary status and how many transformations he had gone through all these years, I wanted to keep that ever-changing vibe from the dream, mixing it with the night magic of Fantasia on the way. The first concept you can see above was deemed too abstract, obviously, as people had to recognize him from far away. The result, "Essence M", was a more defined Mickey, retaining the essence of change.
The pareidolia nods to the old friends of Mickey are quite obvious, but I wanted to add 2 suggestive shapes for characters linked to the origins of the icon: Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, of which Mickey is kind of a reincarnation, and Flip the Frog, who is a Disney character, but one that Mickey's original designer, Ub Iwerks, made his when leaving Disney.
Rolling out a 158cm tall print is no small feat, yo
