Kate Voronina

Kate Voronina spent six years at Moscow’s Academy of Art, then studied illustration at the British Higher School of Design. In 2016 she joined the Tel Aviv animation studio Poink as a background artist. Camilla, the cartoon she helped paint, was shortlisted at Cannes in 2018.

Berlin in 2018 turned her toward walls. The Brave Wall, ten stories for women’s rights, is the one people can find without a map. In 2019 she and Susannah Garden started Sunday Sketching Berlin, teaching illustration around the city, moving the class when the weather or the street asked. Picture books, editorials, silkscreen, vases, and workshops share the week. The vase is not a novelty. It is the same hand deciding a curve can hold a face.

Six years at the Moscow Academy of Art is a long apprenticeship before anyone asks for a mural. BHSAD was the illustration course after that. Tel Aviv in 2016 was Poink, background paint, and Camilla. Cannes in 2018 was a shortlist, not a speech. Berlin in 2018 was walls. The Brave Wall went up ten stories for women’s rights and became the piece you can find without a map.

Sunday Sketching Berlin, from 2019, was Voronina and Susannah Garden taking a class into the city and teaching illustration where the street allowed. Picture books, editorials, silkscreen, vases, and workshops filled the rest of the week. The client list is long on purpose: The Parisianer, Bastille, The Washington Post, Little White Lies, Good Impact, GQ, The Culture Trip, Speisekarte, Schwarzrotgold, La Pastèque, Urban Nation Museum Berlin, Amnesty International, Writer’s Block Murals, Rebel Girls, Beit Hatfutsot Museum Tel Aviv, and Babbel. Newspapers want a page that reads at breakfast. Museums want a wall that reads from the pavement.

The Parisianer and Bastille want a Paris page. The Washington Post wants a newspaper page. Little White Lies, Good Impact, GQ, The Culture Trip, Speisekarte, and Schwarzrotgold want magazines. La Pastèque wants a book. Urban Nation Museum Berlin and Beit Hatfutsot Museum Tel Aviv want rooms people walk through. Amnesty International, Writer’s Block Murals, Rebel Girls, and Babbel want a public that is not only a reader.

Paris since 2023 is the current desk. Start with the Brave Wall, then open a magazine and see whether the same hand still wants the building to be read from the street.