About
Want to be another beast?
I'm Zoë, a London-based artist and carnival-goer with a first class degree in painting and fifteen years' experience as a facepainter. I paint adults and children, at parties, carnivals, events and festivals. Want to step out of your everyday skin and into something scaly, sparkly or more fabulous? I'll listen to what you've imagined and turn it into a design for face or body.
I can help...
After two decades of working and playing with carnival and community groups in Colombia, Brazil, Denmark, Ukraine and the UK, I'm a bit different to other party facepainters. As well as the ever-popular princesses and dinosaurs, I love creating one-off designs in response to costume and character. My background is in listening to what performers need, and then creating fast, bold, precise designs that pack a punch at a distance as well as close up.
For private parties I'm skilled at smaller scale, detailed designs to transform guests into party animals. The time sitting with a facepainter is a moment of stillness - from here partygoers can step out of the everyday and into play and celebration.
There's another beast in each of us. Invite it to the party...
Thank you
...to the brilliant events photographer Claire Jonas for photos 1,3 and 4 on this page, as well as several in the gallery.
I owe a debt to many generous performers, colleagues and masqueraders and like to acknowledge my teachers. They include Bibi Freeman, queen of facepainters, and Mandinga Arts, who I've been working and playing with since their long-ago genesis with the Colombian Carnival Group. Many of the costumes in the images of carnival were created by Mandinga Arts.