She’s the epiphany of a creator of whimsical creatures. Mother of fairies, witches, elves and everything fantasy, Dutch artist Iris Compiet has distinguished herself as a true young talent to watch in the fields of illustration and character design. She has collaborated with Netflix as well as worked for the Star Wars-, Labyrinth- and Dark Crystal Bestiaries. Her Kickstarter-funded art book: Faeries of the Faultlines has registered an impressive international success having been translated in several languages.
Iris Compiet was born in 1979 in a small town in the Southern part of the Netherlands. From a very early age Iris spent her time painting and drawing creatures she read about in the countless fairytales that were her favourites. At the age of seven she had nearly exhausted the children’s literature section of her local library and she ventured out into the “forbidden section”, better known as the adult section. There she came across the book Faeries by Brian Froud and Alan Lee. It was this exact book that made her realise this was what she wanted to do, paint and illustrate fantastical beings and share them with the world.
She studied graphic design at university in the Netherlands, her love for fantasy art always on the surface and graduated with honours with her final project called Schneewittchen Unglückskind. This visual retelling of the fairytale of Snow White laid the foundation for her future career, she wanted to show people the power of visual storytelling. Iris works primarily in traditional media, such as watercolor, gouache, oils and also likes to use clay to breathe life into her creations.
Iris Compiet is the winner of the 2020 Jack Gaughan Award for Best Emerging Artist, and a 2020 nominee for the Chesley Award for Best Gaming Related Illustration. She is the illustrator The Dark Crystal Bestiary and of The Labyrinth Bestiary, and most recently, winner of the 2021 Chesley Award for Best Interior Art for The Dark Crystal.
Iris’s work has appeared in numerous publications including Spectrum, Infected by Art, ImagineFX, and 3D Total. Some of her other clients include Wizards of the Coast, Harper Collins, Insight Editions and Netflix, and her art has appeared in publications around the world. She draws inspiration from European folklore, nature, mythology, fairy tales, ghost stories, tombstones, Victorian photography, movies, and music.