Art Direction for Hybrid (Elsiane’s debut album)

Krista Bursey featured in MTAF

Art Direction for Hybrid (Elsiane’s debut album)

Mend
3' x 4'
Oil on Canvas

5 Original Paintings for Hybrid Album
6" x 6"
Oil on Canvas
Courtesy of Elsiane

Hybrid Digipack foldable CD insert
Graphic design featuring 5 original paintings for Hybrid Album

Vaporous Single CD 
Graphic design featuring Mend painting

Hybrid Live Show Visuals:

Underhelped
Digital Collage
11" x 8"

Mend (to Fix, to Repair)
Choreography and Dance performance by Leah Archambault

Bend Will
Choreography and Dance performance by Leah Archambault

Final Escape
Glass Sculptural Head with water & ink

Hybrid
Pencil on Paper
2' x 3'
Courtesy of Elsiane

5 Original Paintings for Hybrid Album
6" x 6"
Oil on Canvas
Courtesy of Elsiane

In editing collaboration with Fred Casia, 2007

Make-up & Garment for Live Show Performance and Editorial Marketing
Leather Floral Garment and Hair by Cam Patey

2007

More Than a Friend (MTAF) was a fine art and design studio founded by artists Krista Bursey and Jason Wasserman. Active from 2001 to 2009, MTAF functioned as an experimental platform, merging both artists’ distinct practices into a unified visual language.

Elsiane is a musical duo composed of Peruvian singer and songwriter Elsieanne Caplette and musician Stéphane Sotto. Formed in 2000, their name merges both identities, reflecting a deeply collaborative approach to creation. Their sound traverses genres—jazz, classical, rock, and electronica—resulting in a layered and emotionally charged sonic world.

MTAF led the art direction for the majority of Elsiane’s visual identity for Hybrid, including concept, graphics, album design, and live performance elements such as projected visuals, costume, and styling. The visual universe originated from the painting Mend—conceived by MTAF and painted by Krista Bursey—which became the album cover and a central icon of the project.

Mend embodies the contortion present in Elsieanne Caplette’s estranged and visceral voice. At once organic and ambiguous, the form evokes an internal organ—something intimate yet unfamiliar. It exists in duality: inside and outside, masculine and feminine, human and other.

The works presented here include the CD design and painting series featured in the Hybrid fold-out digipak.

For the live show, the visual direction extended across the entire stage environment. Projection, costume, makeup, and hair were conceived as a single interconnected system. A key challenge was translating still imagery into movement, resulting in a hybrid approach combining live-action footage and animation.

In collaboration with contemporary dancer and choreographer Leah Archambault (also vocalist of U.T.I.), we developed contortion-based performances echoing the physicality of the Mend form. Her choreography—performed in a faceless zentai suit—resulted in striking, visceral visuals for the songs Mend and Bent Will.

For the animated sequences, we collaborated with Fred Casia (Parnell Collective), translating hand-drawn pencil works and paintings into motion.