Mental Health Campaign for Queer Youth
(Ongoing)
In this full circle moment, I illustrated for a mental health campaign by It’s Ok To Talk – an initiative launched by Sangath in 2017 – who have been an integral part of my personal mental health journey, and were extremely supportive and helpful as knowledge partners when my friend and I started The Izhaar Project in 2018.
For the campaign, they teamed up with Queerbeat for this wonderful initiative for young queer people to share their mental health journeys, as I did many years ago.
My illustrations are loosely based on people from my own life and community, the queer people who have given me tenderness, love, and family. Drawing from shared moments in the sun where we have spent endless hours co-working, reading, writing, drawing, reflecting, venting, crying, laughing – my illustrations celebrate the mere, mundane, day-to-day of queer community.
The recurring motif of the violet is an homage to its long standing symbolism in sapphic and queer history.
Fulltone Pedal Cover Up
I was approached by a musician to cover up their Fulltone distortion pedal in an attempt to boycott the company, in response to Mike Fuller’s problematic tweets regarding the BLM protests and looting in May of 2020 / They referenced Woody Guthrie’s guitar that said "This Machine Kills Fascists" and decided on a “Silence is an Enemy” (Rage Against The Machine) inspired distortion pedal.
BLM Fundraiser
A friend and fellow illustrator commissioned portraits of Black and POC figures significant to me, to raise funds for BLM charities during the 2020 protests. I chose Marsha P. Johnson, a Black drag queen and pioneer of queer and trans liberation, and Alok Vaid-Menon, a contemporary trans-femme Indian American activist, writer, and comedian.
