An art history student went viral on TikTok for his incredible work: beautiful paintings on the edges of book pages.
Maisie Jackson, 22, from England, has posted numerous videos on her TikTok account @maisie_matilda, showing off her intricate work – called cutting edge painting – on copies of literary classics such as the ‘Harry Potter’ series, ‘The Lord of the Rings” trilogy and the “Dune” trilogy.
Numerous videos of Jackson have reached millions, including a video showing Jackson painting a picture of Hogwarts around the edges of all seven “Harry Potter” books written by JK Rowling. This sequence has been viewed more than 8.1 million times.
A video of Jackson painting a scene of Aragorn and Arwen at Rivendell around the edges of a copy of “The Lord of the Rings” has been viewed more than 7.4 million times.
Jackson told Fox News via email that she started doing avant-garde painting last summer, despite having been a painter for many years.
Her first attempt at avant-garde painting was on a copy of JRR Tolkien’s “The Hobbit”, on which she painted the famous image of a hobbit hole.
Jackson said she posted the video on TikTok “just for fun” and only thought about it the next day after her morning shift when she saw the clip already had 100,000 views. As of Friday, it has been viewed more than 411,200 times.
Jackson said she particularly enjoyed painting avant-garde copies of Tolkien’s work.
“Tolkien suits me best, because I’ve always been primarily a landscape painter, and Middle-earth has an incredible variety of landscapes; mountains, forests, rivers and beautiful architectural concepts,” Jackson said.
A typical Jackson painting can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days, depending on how detailed the painting is, Jackson said, adding, “I often get carried away with the details.
Jackson is also completing her final year of college in art history, which means she has little time to do avant-garde paintings, she said. However, she said she hopes to continue working full-time — and selling her designs on Etsy — once she graduates.
“My main goal is to bring avant-garde painting back into popular visual culture,” she said. “It is currently listed as ‘critically endangered’ by the Heritage Craft Association UK.”
Jackson said that by doing cutting-edge painting and posting the videos on TikTok, she saw her confidence and abilities grow.
