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Sonny is a queer nonbinary illustrator, doodler and musician whose work challenges systemic violence and power dynamics, touching on themes of social, environmental and disability justice. Through their art, they que(e)ry how systems such as capitalism, colonization, and cis-heteronormativity impact us and how we engage with each other.
In their visual art practice, Sonny creates colourful digital images that embrace play, messiness and mistakes, often using multiple layers to form a whole, and sometimes to create an animation. Their layered, moving images speak to the intersections and complexities of our connected and overlapping communities and identities, calling upon us to reflect upon what we perceive and what we miss, the stories we hold in our bodies and the stories we let go of, the parts of ourselves we choose to show and the pieces we keep hidden.
Click into the gallery below for more information about each piece.
Artwork by Sonny Bean featuring a detailed drawing of a multi-coloured bee on top of a colourful multi-layered beehive, with several bee silhouettes in the background.A colourful illustration by Sonny Bean of pink, yellow, purple and orange mushrooms against a light blue background.An illustration by Sonny Bean of a bear with a hot pink snout and bright teal, purple and blue fur. The bear is wading into a light blue creek from a sandy bank. A stand of evergreen trees is in the top left corner.An illustration by Sonny Bean of a large, pink and purple spider sitting atop a collection of pink, red, yellow and green flowers and foliage. Above, small petals and grains of pollen float against an intensely blue sky. An illustration by Sonny Bean of tree with magenta bark and bright green, blue and pink leaves. Owls sit on its branches and attached to its roots underground is a sac in which a multicoloured human-looking baby with round cheeks sleeps peacefully, their arms hugging their knees to their chest.An illustration by Sonny Bean of a smiling moon in yellow, orange, teal, blue, pink and red, floating against a dark blue, starry sky.An illustration by Sonny Bean of an orange and purple spider against a multicoloured web. Below, a smaller, purple and magenta spider uses silk to weave connecting lines between the phrases “context specific”, “community knowledge”, “accessible praxis”, “embodied”, “responsive”, “welcome difference”, and “adapting access to conflicting needs”. An illustration by Sonny Bean of colourful mushrooms fruiting above a mycelium network on a dark puce, earthen, background. Relaxed performance-related terms and phrases are entangled with the mycelium threads, reading, “What is Relaxed Space?”, “Disability Justice”, “Leading with Difference”, “Pedagogy”, “Online”, “Context”, “Social Media”, “Funding & Policies”, “RP Land Acknowledgement”, “Vital Practices”, “Decolonial Praxis”, and “Glossary”.An illustration by Sonny Bean of multicoloured, faceted, iridescent geodes, glittering against a dark teal background. An illustration by Sonny Bean of a mountain range in purple, tan and pink, with a stand of evergreen trees in the bottom left corner.
