The Mystery of Miss.Tic
A famed Parisian street artist you may not know about
I moved to Paris in the winter of 2022 to begin an intensive French course.
One day, my teacher talked about a famed French street artist called Miss.Tic. After that, I’d see her images all over Paris, including in my neighborhood.
Miss.Tic’s real name was Radhia Novat. She was born in Paris in 1956 to a Tunisian immigrant father and French mother. In the early 1980s, she went to California where she was exposed to the punk music scene.
After two years in the U.S., she returned to France. From 1985, her stencils popped up in the Montmartre neighborhood where she grew up. Her work later spread to the Ménilmontant, le Marais, Montorgueil and la Butte-aux-Cailles areas.
Here’s how to spot her work: it usually features a badass woman with long black hair that is definitely reminiscent of a punk rock maven. The woman is accompanied by a poetic message, such as: “Power does not protect, it protects itself” or “Man is a wolf for the man, and an annoyance for the woman.” (see above)
Her writings usually employed a clever wordplay that is known as verlan. It’s a way of taking one word and making another out of it to use as slang. For example, the word relou (above, right) was pulled from the word lourd and means annoying, irritating.
Over the years, her work went far beyond murals and wall art; she designed a book of stamps for the French Post and collaborated with designers like Kenzo and Louis Vuitton.
Miss.Tic died in May 2022, just as I was becoming acquainted with her work. France’s Culture Minister was among those to pay homage to her, saying her “iconic” work would “continue to poetize our streets for a long time”.
So if you’re planning an upcoming trip to Paris, keep your eyes peeled for Miss.Tic’s street art. It’s a unique piece of Paris culture created by an icon.
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I didn’t know about her but I want to go see her work now. I love it. I love Banksy too.
Great story! Her drawings and murals are very cool.