Research Task: EDI in Practice
- Abbie Vidler
- 3 days ago
- 8 min read
For this research task, I will be exploring the work of several artists that engage in issues of EDI (otherwise known as equality, diversity and inclusion).
Nina Chanel Abney
Looking into Nina Chanel Abney's work, I can see bright bold colours with intense shape language as her stylistic choice. Researching her work, she creates through paintings, murals, sculptures, interactive animation and "augmented reality pieces". Abney creates her work to highlight issues on topics like, religion, sex, race, politics, art history and more.
Abney's work shows situations and events through abstract imagery, looking deeper, she creates her work in a way that allows the viewer to come up with their own conclusion-- and interestingly, she creates her work in a way that shows more than one perspective of that certain story/event/situation.
Her thought process is to take what she's consumed through the media, events or through her own life and allows herself to create freely (without worry of judgement) through any medium that feels right for the meaning of the work. 1
Sayra Begum
Moving on to our next artist, Sayra Begum creates comics and graphic novels that center topics of culture, climate crisis and racism. She started out by creating a graphic novel called 'Mongrel' which was based on her experiences with religion, culture, her childhood and racism that comes from the lack of understanding or empathy from others. 2
Her next project was a comic about the climate crisis, creating a climate change comic anthology with other artists that highlight the dangers of the world and the damages that we have done to it; her comic being 'A Monkey's Guide to Deforestation'. 3
Her work has a stylistic flatness that is inspired by surrealism and Islamic miniatures, creating somewhat disproportionate bodies and faces that have a sense of awkwardness to them.
Bringing Eastern Art into the Western World. 4
Mona Chalabi
Mona Chalabi is a data journalist, creating digital illustrations for data that showcases the news, highlighting what needs to be heard. She creates "digital visualization" through an illustration format, talking on topics like US and UK politics and global issues like pollution, racism and so much more.
The focus of her work is to get people to be aware and cultivate emotions from people, to ultimately make them aware and in hopes that they take action. 5
She describes her work as "accessible and transparent", but visually, I look at her work and see great visualisations, each illustrations is unique with the adaptable collaging-style and other mediums; to create her works, she uses pen and paper, as well as Photoshop, InDesign and After Effects. 6
Observing her work, you can see her detail in story-telling by providing facts and figures with illustrations that relate to that topic, such as her 'Illustration of Amazon's profits and taxes between 2010 and 2018'-- which shows stats by setting it in a graph and having Amazon packages make up the visual grids.
Aurelia Durand
Aurelia Durand, another incredible artist that's worked using augmented reality, animations, paintings, murals and illustrations; these mediums create an outlet for her vibrant, bold and visually stimulating style.
Durand wants to represent the under-represented, showcasing bold flowy shapes for afro hair and braids, she does this with the influence and inspiration from her heritage and explores identity through her illustrations and representing a community with incredible colour. 7
Durand has worked with a wide variety of clients like Apple Music, Sephora, Adidas and so many more; being approached to represent diversity through her illustrations, and create more positive messages through her work. 8
Looking at her work, there is a lot of very stimulating and bold colours, alongside simple and fun shapes-- with touches of some line work here and there; all that combined really draws your attention to the illustrations.
Gene Luen Yang
Gene Luen Yang is an artist who has created comic and graphic novels with the aim to create a positive representation of the Asian demographic. In particularly, his book 'American Born Chinese' tells the story of a boy's experience growing up as an 'American Born Chinese' encountering bulling, cultural divide and struggles with identity. For that book, he drew a lot from his own experiences growing, as he had encountered a lot of bulling while admitting himself as a bully himself. Most of his works also include topics like religion as well as race (racism), bullying and other cultural topics. 9
Looking at his work, he has created (or co-created) some incredible titles such as New Superman, Dragon Hoops, the famous Shang-Chi and more. His work creates representation for the Asian community with incredible stories to tell. His style has consistent bold line work with flat colour, simplistic but very narrative-driven design.
Ashley Lukashevsky
Ashley Lukashevsky creates illustrations that represent "queer, female and nonbinary people of colour". Lukashevsky creates with a positive outlook of how she would love to see the world in the future 10; creating for representation, mental health; as well as creating powerful illustrations of "political resistance", creating for any topic that captures her heart and invades her mind. Doing so to help bring awareness to other topics like health-care and racism, and to make people come together and take action. 11
Stylistically, she creates her powerful pieces with pastel colours and using line work and shape language to create 'friendly shapes' (as I call them).
Lukashevsky has worked on many campaigns/awareness illustrations like the 'We Rise' campaign to bring awareness to mental health, reminding people through COVID to check in on loved ones. 12 And also, 'Planned Parenthood', making people aware of the governments lack of care for laws to be placed to restrict proper healthcare for all. 13
Ellen O'Grady
Ellen O'Grady creates comics about the on-going conflict in Palestine, at first creating a graphic novel called 'How Are We To Live? Comic for a Free Palestine', though since October 7th 2023, she has consistently created comics everyday, going through the horrors that lie in Palestine, whether it's history or media coverage, while other days may showcase obituaries. 14
O'Grady creates in hopes to have a future where the Palestinians would be left alone to live their lives on their own, to be recognized as their own state. For now, she will uncover the constant horrors that come out of Palestine.
Creating her comics, she would start out with the story, writing her notes and such, then she will go in with pencil and maybe ink too, before colouring with watercolour or her tablet. Her style is sweet and intimate with the traditional style of her work. 15
Christian Robinson
Christian Robinson creates diverse children's books and animations and does so by using collaging and acrylic paint. The result is a playful style that resonates with children and parents, it's incredibly charming with lots of character and colour, with wish-wash of colours that add lots of texture combined with shapes of collaged paper that really give the illustration that child-like feel. 16
Robinson wants to send out important messages to kids and to represent child through those children's books, and to get them to feel important and valued-- he wants them to feel empowered when they read the book and discover what they are capable of. Working with writer Matt De La Pena, they both create unique story points that reflect the lives of real children, such as children dealing with a parent that has been jailed. 17
Laila Shawa
Laila Shawa, a multi-talented artist that worked with any medium that she wanted, ever adapting and growing; creating paintings, murals, print, children's books and so much more. Due to the variety of mediums and techniques she was bale to capture the full emotion of the topic of artwork with an unique style each time.
Her work is colourful, dramatic and visually pleasing, each artwork tells a story of its own within the same timeline, showing the people, the places, the culture, and the dreaded war of Palestine.
Shawa showcased topics that touched home, the on-going war in Palestine, her birth place. Shawa dedicated herself to tell the lives of Palestinians, including the women. 18 In the hopes to break away from the stigma and make people relate to these wonderful people who have been subjected to torment their whole lives; and on the other side of the coin, also showcasing he result of war, which is death. Laila Shawa spent her life to bring awareness and wanting action for the people of Palestine. 19
Reflection
This research task was extremely eye-opening to look into and they were all incredibly inspiring, they each stand up for what they believed in and went all in. They created beautiful and diverse pieces of work that was unique to their own, all while spreading a message.
As I research and think about how I want to approach my next assignment, I really need to think about an issue that I am passionate about, because just like these artists who are passionate, you can see it in their work.
1 E Okoro, Artsy 'Nina Chanel Abney Reflects on 15 Years of Honing Her Dynamic Painting Practice' Dec 14, 2020. https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-nina-chanel-abney-reflects-15-years-honing-dynamic-painting-practice Accessed May 12, 2025.
2 A Youtsuf, YouTube 'Sayra Begum: Comic Book Artist |Muslims of the Artworld', Sept 28, 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiYZrvjskfw Accessed may 12, 2025.
3 U/A, Art University Plymouth 'TEN YEARS TO SAVE THE WORLD - A MONKEY'S GUIDE TO DEFORESTATION', Oct 29, 2021. https://www.aup.ac.uk/posts/ten-years-to-save-the-world-a-monkeys-guide-to-deforestation Accessed May 12, 2025.
4 A Youtsuf, YouTube 'Sayra Begum: Comic Book Artist |Muslims of the Artworld', Sept 28, 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiYZrvjskfw Accessed May 12, 2025.
5 H Maitland, Vogue 'Data Journalist Mona Chalabi Is Trying To Piss You Off', Nov 4, 2020. https://www.vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lifestyle/article/mona-chalabi-interview Accessed May 12, 2025.
6 N Rakotondravony, Nightingale 'Power to the Powerless: An Interview With Mona Chalabi', Nov 1, 2019. https://medium.com/nightingale/power-to-the-powerless-an-interview-with-mona-chalabi-39d73647d80a Accessed May 12, 2025.
7 K Cowan, CREATIVE BOOM 'Aurélia Durand on finding her identity, celebrating African culture, and the importance of diversity', June 4, 2020. https://www.creativeboom.com/inspiration/aurelia-durand/ Accessed May 12, 2025.
8 U/A, Noun Project 'Aurélia Durand' 2022. https://thelist.thenounproject.com/thelist/aurelia-durand Accessed May 12, 2025.
9 M Poonsawat, Banana Writers 'FEATURED WRITER - Gene Luen Yang', U/A. https://www.bananawriters.com/geneluenyanginterview Accessed May 12, 2025.
10 A Saperstein, The Cut 'The Artist Who Wants You to Know That Everyone's Going Through Something: Ashley Lukashvsky on burnout and making political art'. Jan 18, 2020. https://www.thecut.com/2020/01/ashley-lukashevsky-drawing-a-better-world.html Accessed May 12, 2025.
11 L Snoad, ItsNiceThat 'Ashley Lukashevsky on inspiring political resistance through illustration' Mar 7 2018. https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/ashley-lukashevsky-motivating-political-resistance-illustration-070318 Accessed May 12, 2025.
12 A Saperstein, The Cut 'The Artist Who Wants You to Know That Everyone's Going Through Something: Ashley Lukashvsky on burnout and making political art'. Jan 18, 2020. https://www.thecut.com/2020/01/ashley-lukashevsky-drawing-a-better-world.html Accessed May 12, 2025.
13 M O'Donnell, Working Not Working 'Ashley Lukashevsky on Finding Her Voice Through Anger, Frustration, Fear, & Hope', Feb 26, 2019. https://magazine.workingnotworking.com/magazine/2019/2/26/ashley-lukashevsky-artist Accessed May 12, 2025.
14 T Hartzog, Indy Week 'Ellen O'Grady Shares Stories of Grief, Protest, and Hope in Her Comics About Palestine', Apr 9, 2024. https://indyweek.com/culture/durham-artist-ellen-ogrady-shares-stories-of-grief-protest-and-hope-in-her-comics-about-palestine/ Accessed May 12, 2025.
15 A Ketcham & N Hickey, Autobiographix 'An Interview with Ellen O'Grady', Apr 12, 2023. https://autobiographix.substack.com/p/an-interview-with-ellen-ogrady Accessed May 12, 2025.
16 elenareads, Elena Reads and Reviews 'Interview: Christian Robinson has a "Fun, Simple and Playful" Style', May 31, 2018. https://elenareads.com/2018/05/31/interview-christian-robinson/ Accessed May 12, 2025.
17 TODAY, YouTube ' Artist Christian Robinson Demonstrates His Resilience Through Illustrating | TODAY', Feb 1, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn-JtDm3I_4 Accessed May 12, 2025.
18 HerArt Podcast, Medium 'Laila SHAWA -- a prolific and revolutionary artist from Palestine', Apr 8, 2020. https://shemakesarttoo.medium.com/laila-shawa-a-prolific-and-revolutionary-artist-from-palestine-56fd6727203c Accessed May 12, 2025.
19 N Morelli, Memo (Middle East Monitor) 'The life and work of Palestinian Islamo-Pop artist Laila Shawa', Apr 2, 2019. https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190402-the-life-and-work-of-palestinian-islamo-pop-artist-laila-shawa/ Accessed May 12, 2025.
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