Art as an outlet or manifestation for social, cultural, ecological, or political movements has become quite prevalent these days. Not to say it wasn’t a strong part of things before, just that art has become a more frequent occurrence.
Artists like Banksy have used art to tackle issues like homelessness in the UK and healthcare worker problems during COVID; Fernando Reza used his propaganda-style posters to draw attention to the conspiracies taking over the world; Oscar Olivares used 200,000 recycled bottle caps to create a mural dedicated to drawing attention to ecological problems in Venezuela. The list goes on and on.
One more artist is joining the ranks with her most recent illustrations: digital art depicting different races and ethnicities with writing on their mouths, exclaiming phrases that hope to break the stereotypes forced upon their people.
Art is increasingly being used to draw people's attention to social, cultural, ecological and many other issues
Image credits: denanguyencom
Dena Nguyen, a graphic designer based in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, has recently started a series of digital art called This Is America. The surrealist photo art tackles a number of issues regarding race, ethnicity, and gender.
Dena started off with a face of an Asian woman adorned with Sakura tree blossoms with her mouth detached completely. The caption on the mouth piece reads My race is not a virus, hinting at the recent rise in racism and prejudice against Asian people due to the fact that China is the origin of the COVID-19 outbreak.
The photo description explained that for Dena, as an Asian American, it breaks her heart to see the rise in racism towards Asians due to the coronavirus outbreak. She further explains that racism is never OK.
After this, she got a message from one of her followers asking to do the same, except with an African American saying that they are not a threat. And so the series continued, following with a second photo of a black woman with the caption My race is not a threat, pointing at the problem of aggression and police brutality against African Americans in the US.
Artist Dena Nguyen recently came out with images that do just that—raise awareness about these social problems
Image credits: denanguyencom
Her This Is America series aims to break the negative stereotypes associated with race and gender
Image credits: denanguyencom
She continued asking others to give suggestions, leading to more images, including:
one of a Latino woman with the caption my race is not illegal, drawing attention to the problem of Latino Americans being labeled as illegal immigrants, despite them being legal citizens;
an Arab woman with the caption we are not terrorists, a stereotype that formed following the tragic September 11th events in New York City;
a Native American saying we are not savages, a derogatory term for the native American population coined by the first settlers from Europe coming into North American; and
a woman covered with silhouettes of arms saying women are not objects, raising awareness of the rising sexual harassment and human trafficking issues.
After My race is not a virus, featuring an Asian woman, Dena was asked to do the same with African Americans, captioning it My race is not a threat
Image credits: denanguyencom
After the second image, an entire series was born, currently including six images with the same surreal style
Image credits: denanguyencom
These images started going viral when Andrea Raudales shared them on her Twitter, saying that they are powerful. Less than a day later, though, her post had over 830,000 likes and over 350,000 retweets. Others also started sharing these images soon after.
Dena was surprised to see her work is being shared online. This led to her thank-you tweet, saying how speechless she is that people have gone out of their way to share her art and to spread awareness of these issues.
These images soon went viral when a woman shared them on her Twitter, getting over 830k likes in under a day
Image credits: denanguyencom
Image credits: denanguyencom
Until now, Dena has been mainly challenging herself to create an illustration a day, with most of them revolving around calligraphy, but recently she started experimenting with illustrations including human figures, ultimately leading to the now internet-famous photo art against racism and sexism.
A little bit about Dena Nguyen: Dena is a graphic designer based in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas. Being able to design and bring other people's visions to life is her passion, whether that be creating graphics, illustrations, or branding. Designing to get an impactful message across and being able to help others visually share their story is what fuels her. You can find more of her art on her website and Instagram, and you can check out her YouTube channel where she talks about design, uploads tutorials, gives advice and tips, and more.
Here's some short behind the scenes footage of how Dena designed the images
Video credits: denanguyencom
Video credits: denanguyencom
Video credits: denanguyencom
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