A woman with dark hair, dressed in a light, polka-dot blouse and dark skirt, sitting on a cushion against a white wall with wood flooring, looking directly at the camera.
A woman with dark hair, dressed in a light, polka-dot blouse and dark skirt, sitting on a cushion against a white wall with wood flooring, looking directly at the camera.

Aline Zalko is a French artist, illustrator and painter living and working in Paris. She began her career while studying at the School of Visual Arts in New York, where her illustrations were published in The New York Times, a start that set the tone for a practice that has moved easily between commissioned work and fine art ever since. Her illustrations have appeared in Le Monde, The Zeit and The New-yorker, in advertising campaigns, and on many book covers. Her own books have also been published by Actes Sud, Gallimard, etc.

Alongside this editorial work, Zalko has exhibited in Paris and beyond, including shows at Galerie Dérouillon, Galerie du Jour Agnès B, the Drawing Now art fair, and Huberty & Breyne.

She moves fluidly between colored pencil, pastel, ink, and acrylic, choosing each for what it can do: pencil for its earthiness, acrylic for the speed it allows on large-format paintings. Across both her paintings and drawings, recurring threads emerge: ephemerality and metamorphosis, womanhood, and the raw power of nature, often rendered in intense, exuberant color.