By Tobijulo Onifade

Magic: a quality of being beautiful and delightful in a way that seems remote from daily life.

Magical, that’s the best word to describe Esther’s work.

Esther is a Congolese born, Canadian based illustrator, studying Graphic Design and Communication and is in her final year. Esther has always had a niche for the arts as a child. She started drawing because her elder brother did but realized that she could pursue it when she won the Best Artist award in 8th grade.

Esther is influenced by her faith in God, African/black culture, the 90’s era, fashion, and botany. She is a lover of the Art Nouveau movement. Women, especially black women are the subjects of her illustrations because representation is important to her. You see, she has 3 sisters and wanted to create art that they could identify with. Art history class enhanced this passion as she realized that they weren’t enough paintings of black women and there were only 2 black girls in that class (herself included) and she wanted to create art that represented them. In her words:

“Who knows maybe 40 years later a little girl could open an art book and see some of my illustrations and she will know that she’s beautiful and she also can be a muse for an illustration.”

Esther’s works are realistic with a hint of playfulness. Almost cartoon like which is deliberate. She first started out with monochrome pencil drawings and wanted her works to be super realistic but she wasn’t having fun with t so she decided to switch things up a bit. She is a fan of Disney and Pixel and wanted to create work like that so she mixed a few cartoon characteristics with her digital realism and came up with this style that she loves. Her palette is beautiful and warm and changes depending on the “Vibes” she gets from her drawings.

Esther is recognized for her Art, as she was one of the winners of the Applied Art Student Annual. She has also been featured on BET as one of the “Top 10 Female Artist who rule the Art world”. She plans on starting a streetwear line someday as well as having an Art show. Grounded in her faith and creating work that is inspired by that this is what she has to say about why she creates:

“I create because I love it, it’s relaxing and it’s pretty cool to imagine something and draw it and animate. It’s an awesome feeling, it’s like wow I did that!”

“You guys should expect more art from me, I don’t want to say too much I don’t know where God will lead me but definitely black art.”

With regards to expecting more from her, we do and we know she has only just begun.

To know more about Esther Luntadila’s work, visit her Art635 page.

All images were gotten from her Instagram page: 4everestherr