The ridiculously talented female street artists who are changing the face of Vienna’s streets

Globally, the street art scene is typically a male-dominated domain, however, Vienna has a vast pool of female talent that are expressing themselves on the walls of Vienna.

We asked four female street artists who are brightening up the streets of the city with their amazing murals some questions about their art:

Frau Isa

Describe your style in 9 words, or less:

 Female, whimsical, calm, simple, easy-peasy, and strong.

What inspired you to create your murals? Did you have a mentor?

I started with graffiti when I was 16, and always loved to paint larger size murals.

I had no mentor, no, but a lot of friends and colleagues to work with.

How do you want to empower other women with your art? What’s the message you’re looking to convey?

I love to show the power and strength women have without being loud and aggressive. My protagonists are always fierce but in a kind way.

So the message could be: know who you are, be strong, but be nice to people.

What’s the weirdest thing that happened to you while working on a mural?

OMG! I have had so many weird things happen to me around the world. One of the weirdest happened in Luxemburg, I guess.

After one week of painting in the rain, the mayor of the town told me to paint over the tiger – which was a HUGE part of my (already finished) artwork – because he doesn’t like tigers. I tried to talk him out of it, but no chance. The Tiger had to go.

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Linda Steiner

Describe your style in 9 words, or less:

Figurative, loud & dangerously good.

What inspired you to create these murals? Did you have a mentor?

 I mainly wanted to go bigger with my paintings. Street art was something that I always aspired to do.

Starting in 2018, I quickly became part of the Ripoff Crew with Käthe Löffelmann and Mariella Lehner. I think we’ve learned a lot from each other.

How do you want to empower other women with your art? What’s the message you’re looking to convey?

I usually try to feature women outside of the classic beauty norms. They are hairy, fat, angry, or just weird. This way, I try to broaden and question our society’s perception of women.

What’s the weirdest thing that happened to you while working on a mural?

I was arrested by the police on the Donaukanal.

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Katharina Löffelmann

Describe your style in 9 words, or less:

Bold letters and sketchy real-life politics.

What inspired you to create these murals? Did you have a mentor?

I always feel very inspired by strong emotions and try to channel them into something visually accessible.

It really depends on my mood, but given its public form, street art will always be an effective platform to address issues of any kind and I take advantage of that where possible.

My work in this field has its roots in a deep love for typography and hand lettering, however, these days I’m more open to experiments in a figurative illustration-like style.

I never had a mentor per se, but in my early days, while traveling, I was able to form close bonds with writers all over Indonesia and other parts of the world and definitely learned a lot from them.

In 2018, I started collaborating with the artists Mariella Lehner and Linda Steiner, forming the Street Art collective “Ripoff Crew”. We have painted some pretty big murals together and they always keep inspiring me, artistically and personally.

How do you want to empower other women with your art? What’s the message you’re looking to convey?

I think an important step towards empowerment is visibility – not only taking up space as a female artist, but also in aesthetics and topics that are coded ‘female’.

Even for me, when I first started, I always felt like my style had to be tougher and assimilated to the predominantly male art out there.

Turns out there’s a lot of people that appreciate the softness and even I have more fun painting cute things that make me happy sometimes.

I believe what I’m trying to say is: don’t be afraid to take up space, wherever, and however!

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What’s the weirdest thing that happened to you while working on a mural?

I honestly can’t remember, but there’s always gonna be a person asking you to paint their living room (for no budget), kids trying to steal your cans, and dudes watching you in a slightly creepy way.

Janinski

Describe your style in 9 words, or less:

Fun, quirky, lovely, feministic, illustrated, storytelling, flora & fauna, patterns, type.

What inspired you to create these murals? Did you have a mentor?

I like being creative off the screen and in the open air. It’s my way to leave a footprint in the city and make Vienna more colourful.

I didn’t have a mentor, but I got several opportunities to paint from the iOnArt community back when I started.

How do you want to empower other women with your art? What’s the message you’re looking to convey?

Since street art is still more of a male domain, I would like to encourage other women through the presence of my art to use their artistic voices. I want to send the message to them that it’s okay to take up space.

Do what you want, the way you want to do it, and if you feel insecure about it, do it anyway.

What’s the weirdest thing that happened to you while working on a mural?

When snakes were chasing lizards on the wall that I was painting on in Italy.