What if a city continued to exist long after we had left it behind? For contemporary artist Hélène Jacob, also known as LN, urban landscapes are far more than mere backdrops. Through her vividly coloured pastels and bold perspectives, she reimagines architecture through memory, somewhere between reality, imagination and emotion.
Hélène Jacob: An Artist Reimagining the City
Cities change, and so do our memories. A façade, a narrow street or a skyline can remain in our minds for years, gradually taking on a different form from the one we originally observed.
It is within this space between perception and recollection that Hélène Jacob develops her artistic universe.
Trained at Penninghen art school in Paris, Jacob initially worked as an art director in advertising before pursuing her own artistic practice following a trip to New York in 2010. This journey marked a turning point in her career, as urban architecture gradually became one of her principal sources of inspiration.
New York, Paris and Venice all feed her imagination. Yet her works do not seek to reproduce these cities faithfully. Instead, they offer subjective interpretations in which lines shift, colours intensify and perspectives invite the viewer to explore space differently.
Soft Pastel: Between Architecture and Emotion
Architecture occupies a central place in Hélène Jacob’s work. Buildings rise towards the sky, façades draw closer together and lines converge towards unexpected vanishing points.
Working with soft pastels, she combines architectural precision with spontaneous gestures. Deep blues contrast with luminous yellows, reds and oranges, giving her compositions an almost theatrical intensity.
In Grande Urbanité (2025), buildings frame a narrow passage while a luminous circle draws the eye towards the sky. In Construction (2024), geometric volumes appear to interlock, creating multiple perspectives.
These cityscapes are often devoid of figures. Yet a human presence can still be sensed through electrical wires, antennas, passageways and traces of urban life.
Rather than simply depicting architecture, the artist explores how we perceive places and how they continue to exist in our memories.
An architectural composition with fragmented perspectives, dominated by an intense blue sky.
From Urban Landscapes to Reflections
Hélène Jacob’s recent explorations reveal an evolution in her visual language.
In It’s raining (2026) and Reflets Africains (2026), water transforms the perception of buildings. Vertical lines extend into reflections, colours dissolve and outlines become less distinct.
The city is no longer simply a geometric construction. It becomes a shifting, almost abstract image onto which viewers can project their own impressions.
This exploration of reflections introduces a new dimension to her work, confronting the apparent stability of architecture with the fragility of memory.
An Artistic Practice Open to Other Forms of Expression
Although her pastel cityscapes occupy an important place in her work, Hélène Jacob also explores Tape Art, a technique involving the use of coloured adhesive tape.
She creates portraits and compositions that reflect a broader interest in contemporary imagery, its visual codes and its potential for transformation.
This diversity of techniques reveals an experimental approach in which drawing, colour and composition remain essential.
Based in Paris, the artist has her own studio-gallery, a space that encourages direct encounters and conversations around her work.
32 rue Jacques Louvel-Tessier 75010 Paris
Discover Hélène Jacob in ART MAG International No. 35
How does memory transform the way we see cities?
Hélène Jacob does not paint cities as they are, but as they remain etched in our memories. In its 35th issue, ART MAG International dedicates two pages to an artist who challenges conventional perspectives and reinvents urban landscapes through colour and recollection.