French street artist Miss. Tic dies aged 66

The influential French street artist Miss. Tic has died in Paris aged 66, her family has said.

It said the artist, real name Radhia Novat, passed away on Sunday after an illness. It gave no further details.

Miss. Tic is seen as one of the founders of stencil art - her graffiti of enigmatic female figures became a common sight in the French capital.

She was briefly arrested in 1997 after complaints over defacing public property.

But her works came to be shown in galleries in France and abroad. She also collaborated with the fashion brands Kenzo and Louis Vuitton.

Tributes have been paid to the artist from across France.

Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak saluted her "iconic, resolutely feminist" work, the AFP news agency reports.

Miss. Tic was born in the Montmartre district of Paris in 1956 to a Tunisian immigrant father and a mother from Normandy.

She studied applied arts and street theatre.

"I had a background in street theatre, and I liked this idea of street art," she is quoted by AFP a saying in an interview in 2011.

"At first I thought, 'I'm going to write poems'. And then, 'we need images' with these poems. I started with self-portraits and then turned towards other women," she said.