

Behold, the enigmatic Ms Maria Der, that most extravagant and inscrutable of London's multidisciplinary designers, a debonair eccentric who drifts through the city's fog like a velvet-clad phantom from some decadent Soho reverie.
Yet whence came this singular creature? In the cradle of infancy, fate dealt her a hand both cruel and capricious: accidentally tumbled from her mother's carriage into the vast, snow-swept Siberian wilderness. There, beneath the aurora's ghostly glow, she was discovered and succoured by a mighty she-bear, who nursed the babe at her own teat until the child grew fierce and fleet of foot. Alas, destiny intervened once more, the wandering gypsies snatched her from the beast's embrace, raising her amidst caravans of colour and mystery. They taught her the sinuous arts of dance and the arcane secrets of fortune-telling, reading futures in palms and stars alike.
But one fateful night, gazing upon her own lifelines, Ms Der beheld a vision: London calling, inexorable and glittering. She fled the camp at dawn, bound for the metropolis that would claim her soul.
By day, she conjures concepts for the glittering realms of television, entertainment, and media. Yet in her personal domain, her true genius emerges: audacious graphic posters that alchemise the frothy romantic comedies of the eighties into visions of exquisite, blood-drenched slasher terror, parodies of such satirical savagery as to chill the complacent soul.
Armed with a BA and MA from London's premier arts institutions, this autodidactic sorceress, master of Adobe's arcane arts and imbiber of English via the velvet tones of Lou Reed and Bryan Ferry, wields her talents with duellist's precision and dandy's flair.
Ms Der remains a magnificent mystery: poised, perverse, and perpetually enchanting. Peruse these galleries at your peril, or profound pleasure, and succumb to the shudder of delight.

- Dr. Ozymandias DiFontaine