An illustrator and comics author, Alissa Kumpf is a Ukrainian-Swiss visual artist based in Biel/Bienne. After a foundation year at the Propédeutique d’Art et de Design in Biel/Bienne, she completed her Bachelor’s degree in Illustration at HEAD – Genève in 2025, including an exchange semester at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Bologna. That same year, her graphic novel “Ctoïmo” won the Caran d’Ache Prize and the Joie de lire Prize, and was nominated for the Prix Töpffer for young comics artists. She has since created a comic commissioned by the Canton of Geneva for a collective book published by Atrabile, and in 2026 Caran d’Ache welcomed her for a residency in Lausanne.
Her work blends symbolism and humour, somewhere between tenderness and the absurd. Drawing on her cultural heritage and family stories, she explores intimacy, Slavic superstitions and absence, and brings comics together with ceramics, screen printing, engraving and animation. She has been drawing manga since the age of 13, and her influences include Moebius, Akira, Studio Ghibli and the illustrated fairy tales of Ivan Bilibin. She has run postcard workshops with the Collectif Postillon and, at a Frilingue language camp, taught German while running afternoon drawing classes. Her conviction: teaching and creating go hand in hand.
Gentle and encouraging, Alissa connects very easily with children and wants every pupil to discover their own little inner world and learn to cherish it. She adapts her instructions to each child’s level and wishes within a clear framework: beginners find solid footing, while more experienced pupils are pushed to take their project further. Her classes alternate technical exercises, the search for inspiration and personal projects, from the first sketch to the finished page: inventing a character, building a story in a few panels, trying out a new technique. Everyone progresses at their own pace, in skill and in confidence, while keeping the freedom to invent their own world.