I’m Oana Popescu (aka girlfringe), illustrator living and working in Bucharest.

I’m deeply passionate about creating illustrations, comics and zines centered around girlhood, nostalgia, friendship and relatable youthful experiences. My work explores the quiet inner lives of girls by building romanticized, storytelling-driven artworks shaped by the atmosphere of girl creativity: the emotional language of forums and fandoms, intimate bedroom spaces, secret diaries, handwritten notes, long nights spent drawing and daydreaming & the feeling of creating your own litte world. Through my work, I enjoy telling visual stories about being online, being in love, being creative, sensitive or weird and the quiet beauty of growing up and figuring yourself out <3

Visually, my style blends soft retro-pop influences with a slightly gritty 90s internet-punk edge. The characters in my art can be described as as unapologetically emotional, charismatic, melancholic, sometimes angsty, dramatic or rebellious.

Alongside my illustrations, I’m also passionate about creating mixtapes that capture the exact mood of each artwork, like soundtracks to the worlds I draw. I capture this on my blog ‘Girlfringe Diaries’, where I also yap about my creative process, daily life & the entire universe of my art.