Linda Bondestam
Illustrator
Helsinki, Finland
Recommended by Paolo Rui (Potential Duplicates)
Illustrating the human spark
- Linda creates picture books from dozens of hand drawn elements
- She won Sweden's 2024 August Prize for Children's Literature
- Her work was exhibited alongside Tove Jansson's in the 2025 exhibition From Moomin to Chop Chop
Finnish-Swedish illustrator and author Linda Bondestam focuses on making picture books that blend humour, social commentary and richly imaginative visual worlds. An acclaimed creator of children's books, her work is translated into nearly 20 languages. Linda's book Chop Chop, published in 2024, explores humanity's relationship with technology in a post-human world. She works across drawing, gouache, watercolour and pencil, digitally assembling dozens of hand drawn elements into a single image. Rejecting perfection in favour of spontaneity, Linda embraces irregular lines, mistakes and surprises as essential parts of the creative process. "Mistakes are important. I am not interested in the perfect picture," she says. "I want to surprise myself."
Discover her work
INTERVIEW
AI poses a real threat to the field. I find it sad that people are so willing to give up what matters most. We are special because we create art through our stories. While AI can be useful, we must protect that human capacity. More than ever, we need to make beautiful work.
Children’s books reveal what society looks like and how much power children hold. In Nordic countries, we listen to our kids. There are no limit to types of stories that can be told, from topics about consumerism and war to technology and environmental issues.
Picture books are our first meeting with literature, theatre, performance and art. There is an element of surprise to picture books. As you flip through the pages, something sparks in the reader. It is almost as though the artist is growing plants in people's minds.
The idea for Chop Chop came to me when I saw the way people were talking to delivery robots in Finland, treating them almost like small children. One day, I helped a robot that had tipped over in the snow. Strangely, it did not thank me, which ignited something in me.
Linda Bondestam
Illustrator
Helsinki, Finland
Recommended by Paolo Rui (Potential Duplicates)
ADDRESS
Address upon request, Helsinki, Finland
AVAILABILITY
By appointment only
LANGUAGES
Finnish, English, Swedish
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