Snowboarding
Customize Sébastien Toutant’s Helmet With Designs From These Four Artists
You might just get to watch the Québecois snowboarder sport your custom creation on the slopes for real.
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Montreal is a dynamic hub of arts & culture in Eastern Canada. It’s also the home of legendary snowboarder Sébastien 'Seb Toots' Toutant.
Much like a paint balloon colliding with canvas, Toutant burst onto the snowboarding scene with dazzling speed and vibrance. Winning his first competition at the age of 14, it wasn’t long before his name and reputation were hailed across the province; the country; the world.
Now an Olympic gold medalist (amongst other praiseworthy accolades), Toutant has solidified his status as one of Montreal’s greatest contemporary athletes — a bonafide French Canadian icon. In an effort to celebrate his roots, his passions, and his vast community of supporters, Red Bull reached out to an a local artist, Delphine Dussoubs, also known as Dalkhafine, to design a one-of-a-kind helmet for him to rock on the slopes.
Sébastien Toutant
© Christian Pondella / Red Bull Content Pool
Heartened by their collaboration, Red Bull decided to get more artists from the local community involved, and to develop a way for fans to get in on the action as well.
The outcome? An online activation featuring Dalkhafine’s design, plus design elements created by three other Montreal-based artists, that fans can use to create their own helmet for Toutant.
But that’s not all…
Toutant and his team will be selecting one design created through the activation for him to actually wear on a run! If yours is chosen, you’ll not only be awarded a Meet & Greet with the snowboarding legend himself, you’ll be returning home with the very helmet you designed, signed by Toutant.
Oh, and lifelong bragging rights.
The four artists who collaborated on the project were selected by Red Bull for their impressive bodies of work, playful styles, and commitment to breathing beauty and life into the city they call home. Dalkhafine, Cheryl Voisine, Estée Preda, and Audrey Malo are local creatives we should all be looking out for.
Allow us to introduce you:
01
Dalkhafine
Dalkhafine
© Dalkhafine
Known for her vibrant graphic style and animated imagery, multidisciplinary artist Dalkhafine, champions a childlike enthusiasm for all things art. In 2013, with a bachelor's degree in applied arts and five years of film animation studies under her belt, she decided it was time to try expanding her creative capacities. Nine years of art direction, illustration, motion design, screen printing, painting and VJing later, she now regards “every medium as a new playground.”
Though flowing over the edges of form, Dalkhafine’s work is recognizably consistent in style and theme. Wild animals are almost always placed near women, “a recurring theme that marks a duality between gentleness and brutality,” and black outlines are a given. Her commitment to contrast translated perfectly to this project with Red Bull, which challenged her to use a piece of extreme sporting gear as a canvas.
Artwork by Dalkhafine
© Dalkhafine
“I’ve always loved speed and extreme sports,” she said, so accepting the project was an enthusiastic no-brainer. Zeroing-in on one of Toutant’s passions, Formula One, as a source of inspiration, Dalkhafine went to work reimagining iconic symbols of speed — a stopwatch, flames, a racing flag — in her signature bold strokes. Thrilled by the process, she proposed a follow-up: “My next design challenge: a race car, maybe?”
Committed to her free and playful approach, Dalkhafine encourages emerging artists: “define your creative vision and build your own world. And, of course, always stay positive!”
02
Cheryl Voisine
Cheryl Voisine Headshot
© Cheryl Voisine
“Like most visual artists, I have an undying compulsion to create,” explains Cheryl Voisine, a multifaceted art maker with a knack for graphic storytelling. Having uprooted her life to move to Montreal after school, Voisine attributes her creative success to finding community and embracing spontaneity in her new home. Today, her portfolio is saturated with everything “from screenprints, murals, and installations to animations, character design for puppets, clothing and apparel, the list goes on.”
What distinguishes Voisine’s work — beyond her vivid choice of colour and otherworldly imagery — is her unwavering sense of humor. When it came to approaching her designs for Toutant’s helmet activation, she challenged herself with capturing “the nature and feeling of flying through the air during a big air run.” What visuals emerged? A bug-eyed alien in a single-occupant UFO, a graphic textured acorn, and levitating sheets of tree bark, to name a few.
Artwork by Cheryl Voisine
© Cheryl Voisine
When asked what she wanted people to take away from her illustrations, Voisine declared: “embracing moments of fun and maybe sometimes throwing yourself into the clouds in hopes of meeting an alien.”
Given free rein to be unabashedly herself throughout her creative process, Voisine found working with Red Bull on this project to be both fun and deeply meaningful. That being said, she has high hopes for her next collaboration involving something a little more along the lines of “[painting] from the stratosphere in a spacesuit.”
03
Estée Preda
Estée Preda
© Alex Mertz
A self-taught artist who began her career documenting women's snowboarding through film, Estée Preda is now known for creating whimsical, folk tale-inspired paintings and illustrations. This stark career change was brought about in her late twenties from an impulse to explore more tactile mediums — a shift which dislodged the imagery of her childhood from her subconscious and allowed it to spill out onto the page.
Having been soothed to sleep nightly by the words Hans Christian Anderson and Brothers Grimm, Preda’s artwork is flooded with folk tale characters and motifs. Flora and fauna also frequent her paintings, an ode to the “ephemeral seasons” she used to seek solace in watching turn outside of her bedroom window.
More snowboard stories to check out
Artwork by Estée Preda
© Estée Preda
“My paintings don’t really have a specific meaning, everything is up to interpretation,” says Preda. “I’m an escapist, so the themes I deal with in my work are subconscious made up stories but somehow people seem to see a lot of symbolism and meaning, and that’s precisely what I find meaningful in what I do: what other people see in my work and how they relate to it.”
In regards to designing elements for the activation, Preda reflected: “I’ve come full circle with this project, tying my snowboard background and my visual art together.”
Relatively new to the world of painting and illustrating, she hopes her emboldened amateurism will “inspire others to pick up a brush and paint.”
04
Audrey Malo
Audrey Malo
© Audrey Malo
American cartoons and 90s cereal box illustrations were some of the first visuals to delight Audrey Malo as a child. Now a digital illustrator with a degree in graphic design and fine arts, her artistic style is still largely influenced by this iconic cultural imagery.
Brought up in a small industrial town just outside of Montreal, Malo’s biggest advice for young emerging artists is to always “be excited about all the ways you can make your art grow and be excited about the future.” Like all of the other artists she collaborated with on the activation, she upholds a playful approach to art that prioritizes fun and personal fulfillment above all else.
Artwork by Audrey Malo
© Audrey Malo
For Malo, this looks like embracing spontaneity. When working with Red Bull on crafting her illustration for the activation, she leaned into improvisation. Excited about the final product, she’s honoured to have her work represented in the project.
Now it’s your turn…
Artwork by Dalkhafine
© Dalkhafine
Cheryl Voisine Stickers
© Cheryl Voisine
Cheryl Voisine Illustration
© Cheryl Voisine
Audrey Malo Sticker
© Audrey Malo
Feeling inspired? Head on over to redbull.ca/sebtoots to take part in the activation! Submit your design before December 15th to be entered to win the chance of a lifetime: meeting legendary Québecois snowboarder Sébastien Toutant, then watching him do what he does best with the fruits of your creativity protecting his head.
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