Kia Elizabeth Gardner is an American textile and surface designer who brings a colorist's eye and a deep love of art history to every pattern she creates.

Based in La Rochelle, France, where the Atlantic light meets centuries of artistic heritage, she draws daily inspiration from French culture while maintaining the bold, optimistic sensibility of her American roots.

Kia's approach to design is fundamentally about color—specifically, the kind of fearless, joyful color championed by the Fauves and Henri Matisse. Her palettes channel the electric immediacy of Matisse's cut-outs alongside the atmospheric color fields of Helen Frankenthaler and Mark Rothko, the graphic confidence of Ellsworth Kelly, the sun-drenched brilliance of David Hockney, and the luminous jewel tones of Louis Comfort Tiffany. This artistic lineage—spanning Art Deco, Post-Impressionism, Modern Art, and Abstract Expressionism—gives her work a sophisticated visual vocabulary that feels both timeless and thoroughly contemporary.

Her stylistic influences include, among others, Henri Matisse (of course), Josef Frank, Marimekko, cartoonist Roz Chaz, and French designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac. Her design style favours the textured language and movement of a stroke of the pencil, pastel, or paint brush.

Surrounded by Marimekko fabrics that her mother stretched across canvases like paintings during her childhood, she developed her love of design as their home was transformed into a gallery of pattern and color. With a jazz musician father filling the house with improvisation and rhythm, Kia developed an intuitive understanding of how composition, repetition, and spontaneity create harmony—principles that inform her design work today.

After earning her Textile/Surface Design degrees (BA and Associate) with double minors in art history and international trade from New York's Fashion Institute of Technology, along with a decade immersed in the New York City’s creative energy, Kia relocated to the French coast, where she continues to evolve her design practice with an eye toward contemporary artist’s voices like Julie Mehretu, Cecily Brown, and Kerry James Marshall. The result is pattern work that balances art historical references with fresh, modern sensibility.

Kia thrives in collaborative relationships with creative directors and brings both artistic vision and commercial understanding to every project. She is actively seeking licensing partnerships with brands that value color-forward design rooted in art and culture.