“Most of the time I work with commercial brands that are mainly related to design, fashion and lifestyle, that have ideas and projects that I connect and relate to,” she added in an interview with Sense of Creativity. Fascinated by the world of fashion and textile, as well as its combination with art and illustration, her illustrations tend to center around female characters.

This is a conscious choice, which Ziv ties with her ideology. “As a feminist woman and creator, when I can choose – I’d rather choose to represent women (and men) that are based on beauty models that are different and varied,” she explains. “For example, using different skin and hair colors and body types.”

Inspired by architecture as well as children’s books, Ziv hopes to write and illustrate a children’s book herself someday. “As long as my memory goes back, I was always sketching and drawing,” she recalls. “When I grew up I realized that if there was something that came to me as easily and naturally as painting, then maybe I should do something with it.”

Follow her creative journey through Instagram:

The post The Fashionable Women of Yali Ziv appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Her elegant drawings and watercolors are recognized for their simplicity and color choice – mainly blue – with her distinctive style attracting a variety of commercial clients and individuals. Hussain has also exhibited her more personal pieces at galleries and art events around London, on top of her noteworthy online presence, with almost 10k fans on Instagram alone.

According to her website, her inspiration comes from everyday life – anything from the patterns of home interiors to the natural shapes of the outdoors and the geometries of architecture. Working in several different media, usually at night, she is driven by experimentation, constantly exploring new techniques and searching for the shapes and subjects they express best. 

Often, her work includes elements that appear incomplete – a bird reduced to an outline or a face with an absent feature – obliging the viewer to pause and engage with the artwork, filling in the absences themselves rather than just dismissing it and moving on. In other words: her creations are well worth a closer look.

The post Laxmi Hussain Explores Her Blues appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“Getting a nose job is something I have debated since I realized it was possible, aged 11,” she wrote in a now-iconic piece for the Evening Standard. “I’ve imagined my face with a smaller nose and the life that would go along with it: more confidence, more friends and more dates. But I never went through with it, even when my mum offered to pay for the surgery when I was 17. I was too scared. […] I couldn’t bear the thought of having a new nose and then realizing the problem wasn’t my nose; it was me.”

“And then suddenly, this year, everything changed,” she added, candidly. “It hit me that this one insecurity had been ruling my life for 27 years. It had held me back from living my life to the fullest, to the point at which I almost turned down TV appearances to promote my work as a journalist and author because the camera would capture my face side-on. I knew I had to face my fears. So, after weeks of anxiety, I took my first-ever side profile selfie and posted it on social media with the hashtag #sideprofileselfie. ‘I’m breaking the big-nose taboo,’ I wrote. ‘Join me.”’ 

A couple of years passed but the movement isn’t showing signs of slowing down. In fact, it spread so quickly that within hours it was written about on hundreds of websites around the world, from the United States to Australia. “It has now reached millions, and more than 10,000 men and women have sent me their selfies, all with messages I completely relate to,” writes Sanghani. “It showed them an alternative view: that big noses could be beautiful and not something to be hidden or fixed by surgery.”

PREACH!

The post Radhika Sanghani Wants You to Love Every Inch of Your Big Nose appeared first on PlayJunkie.

A couple of years later, and the t-shirt turned into The Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign – a female-powered organization that brings awareness to social causes, supporting a wide range of initiatives. According to their website, by getting the official Phenomenal Woman t-shirt, you’re not only making a bold statement in support of women everywhere, but you’re also supporting the critical work that’s being done for women’s rights on the ground by fearless organizations every day. 

“I thought I was going to create 20 or so shirts and send them off with my friends,” admitted Harris in an interview with Shape. But then, the Women’s March happened, and the simple t-shirt gained traction. “Instead of saying ‘ok, we hit our goal, let me go back to my regular life,’ I thought ‘holy cow, I have to keep growing this, right? We’re really onto something here,'” she recalled thinking. “Turning what I think was this moment of despair and what was really scary for a lot of people into a moment of celebration and of lifting women up, and of saying that women are resilient and phenomenal in their own individual ways and, together, we can get through this—that’s really what inspired me to commit to this long-term.”

And so, she went from one month to a three-month pilot, during which time she ended up selling over 10,000 shirts. “And here I am now, over two and a half years later, talking about it,” she says. “I never thought that it would be anything bigger than one month.”

Follow her impressive campaign on Instagram:

The post What Happens When You Add Feminism to Fashion? The Phenomenal Woman appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“Narrative and narrative imagery has always appealed to me,” she relayed in an interview with Girl Trip. “Abstract and minimal work never seemed to be an option for me, I needed more to hold onto, I needed to feel engaged. I think it’s necessary to investigate the stories we grew up with, and other stories that have been told throughout history, and how those have shaped us – not just how they morally shaped us, but how they conjure certain images in our brain. Most of these stories I’ve come upon through narrative resources of literature and film, but also very clearly from the research and image-mining that I conduct while traveling.”

These narratives often rely on her experience as a female artist. “The fact that I’m female is an important part of my work,” she stressed. “My work involves my identity directly, especially since I often use my own body as a model. A lot of artists don’t call themselves feminists or don’t want to be classified as ‘women artists’ and I get that; we should be considered across the whole broad sphere of art discourse, not just as a representation of our gender. Men don’t face that same prescription. However, because we ARE less represented in the art world (in terms of who is being shown at galleries and museums, who is selling, etc), I think shouting out that identity, as a female artist, serves the call for more female representation in the art world.”

Her paintings are meant to look stained, emphasizing the effects of a visceral mark. In one series, Carter paints using cranberry juice, which refers to her background. The fluid is juxtaposed with collage elements; using solvents and other transfer methods she directly appropriates reference images from her archive.

Follow her Instagram page for more.

The post Alexandra Carter’s Paintings Are Meant to Look Stained appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Inspired by nature, female beauty, plants, and eastern cultures, her illustrations mostly consist of female figures, surrounded by floral ornaments. “Inspiration literally accompanies me everywhere,” she told I Love Illustration. “I love my work so much that it’s enough for me to wake up early in the morning, to make coffee, to turn on the music and off you go… There are no special attributes of my inspiration, ideas are born from what I see around me, in nature, in books, on TV, in magazines.”

Her toolbox includes acrylic and watercolors, oil paints and digital helpers. According to Ignatiadou, creating an illustration is not unlike meditating – the process is more important than the result. “At the moment I’m working intuitively and all the illustrations that I create are rather an emotion that I try to show,” she shared. “I like to work in a calm, relaxed state, so I do not hurry to release one work per day. It usually takes quite a long time to develop a sketch and to choose the color scheme.”

Her advice to other aspiring artists: “trust your inner voice and your personal power.” Take a look at some of her powerful creations:

The post Sasha Ignatiadou’s Illustrations Feature Fearless Women appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“I cover a lot of topics and themes but generally they’re all centered around women and women’s health,” she told Inky Goodness. “As someone who has struggled with body image and the female body I want to share my experiences and shine a new light on certain topics such as body hair and body image.”

Having studied Fine Art at Oxford Brookes University, she currently runs an illustration business from home and works as a graphic designer at a publishing company. “I would love to work solely for myself and be a full-time illustrator and ceramicist,” she admits. “I also hope to have a small studio where I can teach a few workshops.”

Rosi’s Instagram page (which amassed quite the following) mostly features her more personal projects. Those include behind the scenes photos of her ceramics work at various stages of progression. “I think Instagram stories is a great way to communicate with your audience,” she says. “It enables you to ask questions directly and take polls without your audience having to do much. As well as this, it’s great for sharing other people’s work and more personal parts of your day that maybe you don’t want to keep on your feed.”

We highly recommend you follow her work:

The post Rosi Teaches Body Positivity Through Her Art appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Alessandra Genualdo

Illustrator and painter, Alessandra Genualdo, is known for her striking women portraits. They are intertwined with natural motifs like flowers and leaves. Her subjects often stare directly forward, making for an uneasy effect, as their gaze seems to linger on. “The female figure is a big source of inspiration,” Genualdo shared with Creative Boom. “Many of the works I produce have been influenced by what surrounds me, my memories, women I have met, so can be considered a metaphorical reinterpretation of reality,” she added.

Stephanie DeAngelis

Los Angeles based illustrator, Stephanie DeAngelis, wants to remind women to take a breather, because – let’s face it – life can be rough and we all deserve a break. Her playful illustrations portray women going about doing their thing. One is seen stretching, while another enjoys a bowl of noodles. “My personal work comes from a passion for storytelling and aims to accurately portray women and the female form within art,” DeAngelis writes on her website.

Laci Jordan

Laci Jordan’s digital illustrations are bold, vibrant, and unapologetic. And so are her women subjects. “I tend to work in a few different spaces, from streetwear to activism, and there are different challenges in each space,” she shared in an interview with Create & Cultivate. “Common challenges are equality in both pay and opportunities. I also hear people say that they can’t find women artists or artists of color when recruiting; leading to another challenge in visibility — I’ve heard this a TON in the corporate space. Good thing it’s platforms like Women Who Draw and Women Illustrators of Color that give a directory of dope artists.”

The post Three Illustrators Who are All About Girl Power appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“I’m using my experience and journey of self-love to help all women on their own journey of feeling empowered, celebrated, uplifted, and supported on a daily basis,” writes Reel on her website. “As self-love is not a destination, but an everyday practice.”

Soon, what started as a humble Instagram profile grew to a movement. Now, the online community and philanthropic organization aims to empower women actively. It also has an official clothing line.

“I didn’t know what that would be, but I knew that I needed to create something from my lack of inspiration,” admits Reel in an interview with
Create & Cultivate. “That’s when I decided to create an Instagram account where I would post inspiring and motivating content to help get my life together.”

Take a look.

The post This Instagram Page Aims to Empower Women appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Muholi co-founded the Forum for Empowerment of Women (FEW) in 2002, and in 2009 founded Inkanyiso, a forum for queer and visual activist media.

“My practice as a visual activist looks at black resistance—existence as well as insistence,” she shared with aperture. “The key question that I take to bed with me is: what is my responsibility as a living being—as a South African citizen reading continually about racism, xenophobia, and hate crimes in the mainstream media? This is what keeps me awake at night.”

In a series of self-portraits, Muholi aims to show “just how important our black faces are when confronted by them—for this blackface to be recognized as belonging to a sensible, thinking being in their own right.”

Be sure to follow her Instagram account for more of her inspiring work.

The post South African Photographer Treats Her Art as Visual Resistance appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“Most of the time I work with commercial brands that are mainly related to design, fashion and lifestyle, that have ideas and projects that I connect and relate to,” she added in an interview with Sense of Creativity. Fascinated by the world of fashion and textile, as well as its combination with art and illustration, her illustrations tend to center around female characters.

This is a conscious choice, which Ziv ties with her ideology. “As a feminist woman and creator, when I can choose – I’d rather choose to represent women (and men) that are based on beauty models that are different and varied,” she explains. “For example, using different skin and hair colors and body types.”

Inspired by architecture as well as children’s books, Ziv hopes to write and illustrate a children’s book herself someday. “As long as my memory goes back, I was always sketching and drawing,” she recalls. “When I grew up I realized that if there was something that came to me as easily and naturally as painting, then maybe I should do something with it.”

Follow her creative journey through Instagram:

The post The Fashionable Women of Yali Ziv appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Her elegant drawings and watercolors are recognized for their simplicity and color choice – mainly blue – with her distinctive style attracting a variety of commercial clients and individuals. Hussain has also exhibited her more personal pieces at galleries and art events around London, on top of her noteworthy online presence, with almost 10k fans on Instagram alone.

According to her website, her inspiration comes from everyday life – anything from the patterns of home interiors to the natural shapes of the outdoors and the geometries of architecture. Working in several different media, usually at night, she is driven by experimentation, constantly exploring new techniques and searching for the shapes and subjects they express best. 

Often, her work includes elements that appear incomplete – a bird reduced to an outline or a face with an absent feature – obliging the viewer to pause and engage with the artwork, filling in the absences themselves rather than just dismissing it and moving on. In other words: her creations are well worth a closer look.

The post Laxmi Hussain Explores Her Blues appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“Getting a nose job is something I have debated since I realized it was possible, aged 11,” she wrote in a now-iconic piece for the Evening Standard. “I’ve imagined my face with a smaller nose and the life that would go along with it: more confidence, more friends and more dates. But I never went through with it, even when my mum offered to pay for the surgery when I was 17. I was too scared. […] I couldn’t bear the thought of having a new nose and then realizing the problem wasn’t my nose; it was me.”

“And then suddenly, this year, everything changed,” she added, candidly. “It hit me that this one insecurity had been ruling my life for 27 years. It had held me back from living my life to the fullest, to the point at which I almost turned down TV appearances to promote my work as a journalist and author because the camera would capture my face side-on. I knew I had to face my fears. So, after weeks of anxiety, I took my first-ever side profile selfie and posted it on social media with the hashtag #sideprofileselfie. ‘I’m breaking the big-nose taboo,’ I wrote. ‘Join me.”’ 

A couple of years passed but the movement isn’t showing signs of slowing down. In fact, it spread so quickly that within hours it was written about on hundreds of websites around the world, from the United States to Australia. “It has now reached millions, and more than 10,000 men and women have sent me their selfies, all with messages I completely relate to,” writes Sanghani. “It showed them an alternative view: that big noses could be beautiful and not something to be hidden or fixed by surgery.”

PREACH!

The post Radhika Sanghani Wants You to Love Every Inch of Your Big Nose appeared first on PlayJunkie.

A couple of years later, and the t-shirt turned into The Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign – a female-powered organization that brings awareness to social causes, supporting a wide range of initiatives. According to their website, by getting the official Phenomenal Woman t-shirt, you’re not only making a bold statement in support of women everywhere, but you’re also supporting the critical work that’s being done for women’s rights on the ground by fearless organizations every day. 

“I thought I was going to create 20 or so shirts and send them off with my friends,” admitted Harris in an interview with Shape. But then, the Women’s March happened, and the simple t-shirt gained traction. “Instead of saying ‘ok, we hit our goal, let me go back to my regular life,’ I thought ‘holy cow, I have to keep growing this, right? We’re really onto something here,'” she recalled thinking. “Turning what I think was this moment of despair and what was really scary for a lot of people into a moment of celebration and of lifting women up, and of saying that women are resilient and phenomenal in their own individual ways and, together, we can get through this—that’s really what inspired me to commit to this long-term.”

And so, she went from one month to a three-month pilot, during which time she ended up selling over 10,000 shirts. “And here I am now, over two and a half years later, talking about it,” she says. “I never thought that it would be anything bigger than one month.”

Follow her impressive campaign on Instagram:

The post What Happens When You Add Feminism to Fashion? The Phenomenal Woman appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“Narrative and narrative imagery has always appealed to me,” she relayed in an interview with Girl Trip. “Abstract and minimal work never seemed to be an option for me, I needed more to hold onto, I needed to feel engaged. I think it’s necessary to investigate the stories we grew up with, and other stories that have been told throughout history, and how those have shaped us – not just how they morally shaped us, but how they conjure certain images in our brain. Most of these stories I’ve come upon through narrative resources of literature and film, but also very clearly from the research and image-mining that I conduct while traveling.”

These narratives often rely on her experience as a female artist. “The fact that I’m female is an important part of my work,” she stressed. “My work involves my identity directly, especially since I often use my own body as a model. A lot of artists don’t call themselves feminists or don’t want to be classified as ‘women artists’ and I get that; we should be considered across the whole broad sphere of art discourse, not just as a representation of our gender. Men don’t face that same prescription. However, because we ARE less represented in the art world (in terms of who is being shown at galleries and museums, who is selling, etc), I think shouting out that identity, as a female artist, serves the call for more female representation in the art world.”

Her paintings are meant to look stained, emphasizing the effects of a visceral mark. In one series, Carter paints using cranberry juice, which refers to her background. The fluid is juxtaposed with collage elements; using solvents and other transfer methods she directly appropriates reference images from her archive.

Follow her Instagram page for more.

The post Alexandra Carter’s Paintings Are Meant to Look Stained appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Inspired by nature, female beauty, plants, and eastern cultures, her illustrations mostly consist of female figures, surrounded by floral ornaments. “Inspiration literally accompanies me everywhere,” she told I Love Illustration. “I love my work so much that it’s enough for me to wake up early in the morning, to make coffee, to turn on the music and off you go… There are no special attributes of my inspiration, ideas are born from what I see around me, in nature, in books, on TV, in magazines.”

Her toolbox includes acrylic and watercolors, oil paints and digital helpers. According to Ignatiadou, creating an illustration is not unlike meditating – the process is more important than the result. “At the moment I’m working intuitively and all the illustrations that I create are rather an emotion that I try to show,” she shared. “I like to work in a calm, relaxed state, so I do not hurry to release one work per day. It usually takes quite a long time to develop a sketch and to choose the color scheme.”

Her advice to other aspiring artists: “trust your inner voice and your personal power.” Take a look at some of her powerful creations:

The post Sasha Ignatiadou’s Illustrations Feature Fearless Women appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“I cover a lot of topics and themes but generally they’re all centered around women and women’s health,” she told Inky Goodness. “As someone who has struggled with body image and the female body I want to share my experiences and shine a new light on certain topics such as body hair and body image.”

Having studied Fine Art at Oxford Brookes University, she currently runs an illustration business from home and works as a graphic designer at a publishing company. “I would love to work solely for myself and be a full-time illustrator and ceramicist,” she admits. “I also hope to have a small studio where I can teach a few workshops.”

Rosi’s Instagram page (which amassed quite the following) mostly features her more personal projects. Those include behind the scenes photos of her ceramics work at various stages of progression. “I think Instagram stories is a great way to communicate with your audience,” she says. “It enables you to ask questions directly and take polls without your audience having to do much. As well as this, it’s great for sharing other people’s work and more personal parts of your day that maybe you don’t want to keep on your feed.”

We highly recommend you follow her work:

The post Rosi Teaches Body Positivity Through Her Art appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Alessandra Genualdo

Illustrator and painter, Alessandra Genualdo, is known for her striking women portraits. They are intertwined with natural motifs like flowers and leaves. Her subjects often stare directly forward, making for an uneasy effect, as their gaze seems to linger on. “The female figure is a big source of inspiration,” Genualdo shared with Creative Boom. “Many of the works I produce have been influenced by what surrounds me, my memories, women I have met, so can be considered a metaphorical reinterpretation of reality,” she added.

Stephanie DeAngelis

Los Angeles based illustrator, Stephanie DeAngelis, wants to remind women to take a breather, because – let’s face it – life can be rough and we all deserve a break. Her playful illustrations portray women going about doing their thing. One is seen stretching, while another enjoys a bowl of noodles. “My personal work comes from a passion for storytelling and aims to accurately portray women and the female form within art,” DeAngelis writes on her website.

Laci Jordan

Laci Jordan’s digital illustrations are bold, vibrant, and unapologetic. And so are her women subjects. “I tend to work in a few different spaces, from streetwear to activism, and there are different challenges in each space,” she shared in an interview with Create & Cultivate. “Common challenges are equality in both pay and opportunities. I also hear people say that they can’t find women artists or artists of color when recruiting; leading to another challenge in visibility — I’ve heard this a TON in the corporate space. Good thing it’s platforms like Women Who Draw and Women Illustrators of Color that give a directory of dope artists.”

The post Three Illustrators Who are All About Girl Power appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“I’m using my experience and journey of self-love to help all women on their own journey of feeling empowered, celebrated, uplifted, and supported on a daily basis,” writes Reel on her website. “As self-love is not a destination, but an everyday practice.”

Soon, what started as a humble Instagram profile grew to a movement. Now, the online community and philanthropic organization aims to empower women actively. It also has an official clothing line.

“I didn’t know what that would be, but I knew that I needed to create something from my lack of inspiration,” admits Reel in an interview with
Create & Cultivate. “That’s when I decided to create an Instagram account where I would post inspiring and motivating content to help get my life together.”

Take a look.

The post This Instagram Page Aims to Empower Women appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Muholi co-founded the Forum for Empowerment of Women (FEW) in 2002, and in 2009 founded Inkanyiso, a forum for queer and visual activist media.

“My practice as a visual activist looks at black resistance—existence as well as insistence,” she shared with aperture. “The key question that I take to bed with me is: what is my responsibility as a living being—as a South African citizen reading continually about racism, xenophobia, and hate crimes in the mainstream media? This is what keeps me awake at night.”

In a series of self-portraits, Muholi aims to show “just how important our black faces are when confronted by them—for this blackface to be recognized as belonging to a sensible, thinking being in their own right.”

Be sure to follow her Instagram account for more of her inspiring work.

The post South African Photographer Treats Her Art as Visual Resistance appeared first on PlayJunkie.