A series of collaborative drawings by the two Swiss illustrators and artists during a stay in Los Angeles, confronting the city's demons and wonders with unbridled felt-tip pens and colored pencils.
In September 2023, Müller and Schenardi spent a month in an early 1900s bungalow in Echo Park, Los Angeles—their first time visiting the city. It felt like a Lynchian dream: wandering through paradise-like garden neighborhoods, hearing owls at night from bed, watching coyotes from the porch swing at dusk, sitting in cars rolling along in an endless stream of other cars. But mesmerizing scenes could shift abruptly into unsettling ones. The artists were drawn to the contrast between light and shadow—on multiple levels. A peaceful stroll down a quiet street lined with blooming flowers suddenly turns into a frantic escape from a bloodhound trying to tear through a fence to get to them. A sinister stairway leading down from the sunlit Sunset Boulevard awakens primal fears. A black hole in the last few meters of a dark sidewalk—just before reaching a legendary diner-turned-music-club—seems like it could swallow you whole. Plant-based pizzas kill your appetite. And monster trucks are real.
Lina Müller and Luca Schenardi regularly take time for their collective drawing work besides their own illustration commissions for clients like The New York Times, The New Yorker, Die Zeit, Bloomberg Businessweek, Patience / Impatience, emergence magazine or Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin.
For Plant-Based Monster Trucks they got much more into colors than ever before. Felt pens and color pencils were used in an almost impetuous way.
Lina Müller (born 1981) is an artist, illustrator and designer based in Switzerland.
Luca Schenardi (born 1978) is an artist, illustrator and designer based in Switzerland.
