Heart on her sleeve: Gabrielle Laïla Tittley, the Montreal artist behind Pony

Walking up rue St-Hubert, the Pony store is hard to miss on a strip as eclectic as the Plaza with its blue exterior and an array of colourful stuffed toys on display.. The inside is bright with primary colours, recalling a fever dream from a sleepover, or the TV set from a 90s kids' show, except there’s a giant yellow penis in the corner with a smiley face on it. Instead of teddy bears, the store sells stuffed versions of characters like Anxiyeti, a figure that, according to its description on the online store, spent a lot of time alone in the forest and just wants to find people to hug.

Another character is Kinzu, a character with a heart-shaped head and cracks embroidered throughout, described on the Pony website as someone who lost a piece of themselves at some point but decides to ”see this grief as part of the incredible adventure that is their unique existence.”

"I was someone who was super sensitive, things affected me more, I felt things more.”

For the artist Gabrielle Laïla Tittley, aka Pony, these stuffed toys are a way to soften the hard edges in life and to give shape to the feelings that have always been close to the surface. 

“I was never the kid with a pencil in hand who wanted to draw all the time,” she says. “I was someone who was super sensitive, things affected me more, I felt things more.” 

“I think it’s a blessing and a curse. The curse is that things are quickly overwhelming for me, things have always been overwhelming. And art is a way for me to—like when the sponge is full of water—squeeze all the water out. That’s art for me.”

Therapeutic art

Gabrielle’s distinctive and cheeky style has been found on murals, clothes, and videos, and her voice became well-known on the TV show Résiste! about underground art. Before her ubiquity in Montreal pop culture, she was born in Québec City, moving around with her family and landing in Montreal as a teenager.

She describes her childhood as not always having been easy, sharing that it pushed her to grow up quickly. “When I would go to bed, I would pray, ‘I just want to be normal.’” 

“I think it’s a blessing and a curse. The curse is that things are quickly overwhelming for me, things have always been overwhelming. And art is a way for me to—like when the sponge is full of water—squeeze all the water out. That’s art for me.”

“At every street corner, there is bad news: there are wars, there are genocides, and it’s not easy to find softness.”

As the child of an immigrant mom, she recounts how there was a sense of being half one thing and half another, never quite fitting into the mainstream. “I had an afro of super curly hair, I looked Arab. It’s with age that I have accepted who I am and reconnected with it.”

Her mother created music and painted murals inside the house while Gabrielle was growing up, showing her that art can be a way to heal trauma. 

“My mom is an immigrant woman who is incredibly strong, and she taught me that even if you have nothing, you can still give something back from your hands or your imagination, to give back to those who are in need.”

Later on, a therapist would tell her that you can’t skip any phases of your life, and for Gabrielle, art has provided her with the tools to grapple with experiences that may have been too big for a kid, or an adult living in current times.

With Pony, her illustrations are often tongue-in-cheek about the weight of the climate crisis, armed conflict, or loneliness, but ultimately she identifies as an optimist. This optimism comes through in the nostalgic quality of her work, infused with the colourful naiveté that comes with being young. 

“At every street corner, there is bad news: there are wars, there are genocides, and it’s not easy to find softness.”

So she introduces characters like the Yeti with anxiety, or the popular “Club Optimiste” sweatshirt, with the illustration of a house on fire.

"We are so divided today, we are all in our echo chambers, and it’s more important than ever to feel united and to feel that we are not alone.”

“My motivation is really that if I am feeling these many emotions, I know that many of us feel this way. It’s like when you listen to a song that perfectly encapsulates the heartbreak you feel. Things are less dark and you feel less alone.” 

Going beyond a way to express how she feels, Gabrielle uses her art as a way to connect to others. Her work has resonated with audiences in Montreal and beyond, and her designs adorn sweatshirts and t-shirts around the city. In a culture that has been sanitized of feelings, where the language of therapy is common but space to deal with actual trauma is limited, Gabrielle’s playful designs act as an outlet for our interior lives.

“As long as I am here, I might as well try to make things better.”

Local artisans behind every stuffed toy

“It’s kind of like my values encapsulated in a stuffed toy,” Gabrielle laughs. She’s explaining the Montrealers that make her stuffed toys and clothing possible, including a Colombian seamstress who has decades of experience and whom she calls an OG.

In charge of the smaller stuffed toys is 70 year-old Anna-Maria, a Colombian woman, or Camilo, a man who makes the larger toys. Then there’s Elie Chap, a friend and fellow artist who prints all of the Pony merch.

“My mom is an immigrant woman who is incredibly strong, and she taught me that even if you have nothing, you can still give something back from your hands or your imagination, to give back to those who are in need.”

Combined with the small team of five people at the shop, Pony is a tight operation, where the hands of local artisans are behind the colourful illustrations and stitches. A part of production still takes place overseas, a way to keep costs lower and in trying to find the balance between ethical production and products that people can afford in the current economic climate.

Peace through art

Recently, her mother’s art has been featured directly in Gabrielle’s work, especially a t-shirt she just released as a fundraiser for the NGO Medical Aid for Palestinians.

On the shirt, PONY characters hold hands around the world, with the slogan “United for Peace” written in French, Arab, and English. Her mom did the calligraphy, and Gabrielle put the design together after seeing horrific images online, a way to give an outlet to her emotions, transforming her anxieties and fears into art.

“It’s one of the most beautiful gifts in the world to not feel so alone. To realize that ‘No, actually, we all kind of have the same problems.’ We are so divided today, we are all in our echo chambers, and it’s more important than ever to feel united and to feel that we are not alone.”

“As long as I am here, I might as well try to make things better.”

Check out the store and follow Gabrielle Laïla Tittley, aka Pony, here.