Shifting into Slowness
What does it mean to shift your art practice from one fuelled by the demands of fast paced social media platforms, to one that makes space for a pause? What does it mean to suddenly see the rest of the world discussing a pause, when disabled people have been practising, experiencing and sharing it for many decades now? What are the ways slowness and care intertwine with each other?
Through their illustrative work in the last few years, Sonaksha has been sitting with and visually exploring these questions and messages. Their illustrations use a combination of texture, typography, soft and vivid hues and diverse genders and body-minds to create a world grounded in slowness, gentleness and community care.
Image Description: Illustration of a person holding the words ‘Grow at your own pace’ in their palms, flowers growing from them in purple, pink and blue with stars twinkling across.
Image Description: Illustration of a person with short pink hair and dark brown skin looking into the distance. They are wearing a yellow top and a floral drop earring. They are wearing purple eyeshadow and liner, have a lilac septum ring and are wearing green lipstick. The background is purple-blue and has violet stars on it. The text above them is hand lettered and says: ‘Hold Space for yourself’.
Image Description: Illustration of a person with pink long hair and brown skin, their head tilted up and breathing a sigh of relief. They are wearing a violent lipstick and circular patterned earrings. They are also wearing a green sweater. Leaning on their shoulder is a person with curly chin length hair with their eyes closed. They have brown skin, and are wearing a violet patterned top and have some pink and green kinesio tape on their arms. A soft white light with speckles of dust shines on them. Behind them, lines slowly grow together, merging and fissuring with and from each other. Stars twinkle across the magenta textured background. Sonaksha’s signature is hand written near the person in the green sweater.
Image Description: Illustration of a brown person with black shoulder length hair in a teal shirt and fluorescent yellow shorts staring up at blue purple skies scattered with stars and clouds. They are sitting on a peachish orange patterned rug with purple pillows. The words: 'holding myself with softness' are lettered above them.
Image Description: Illustration of the silhouette of a person in white colour holding their knees and a home shaped object between them sitting in a puddle with leaves growing out of it. There are a constellation of stars across and the words: ‘As I grow, so do my needs’ on top. The background is a hot pink colour.
Image Description: Illustration of a person with black hair and brown skin, wearing a purple and blue patterned top leaning on the shoulder of a person with a teal coloured bob and light skin, wearing a pink sweater with blue stars on it. There are leaves in front of and behind both of them. The words against a yellow background say: ‘Affirming each other as we are’
Image description: Illustration of a person wearing a purple jacket and yellow patterned pants standing under a gigantic drooping flower. The flower is blue-purple-yellow with a curvy yellow stem. There are petals from the flower falling across the floor. The text on the left is hand lettered and says ‘Sometimes I don’t want to speak, I just want to be.’
Image Description: Illustration of a person with chin length curly hair inside a box filled with some water. There are flowers and leaves blooming in front of them. The background is a textured purple-blue sky filled with interconnected yellow stars. Bursts of pink-orange rise out of the box and from them.
Image Description: Illustration of a person with blue curly hair with the words ‘It’s okay if all you did today was cry’ lettered on it. There’s a notepad with an empty to-do list on it and two yellow hands emerging from it. The background is patterned with pink right and left palms/hands.
Image Description: Illustration of a purple-pink sky, scattered with stars connected to each other. Hand lettered text on the left reads: "Sometimes, being is a lot, so can we just sit in stillness together?" The word together extends into a single line drawing of a figure next to the text, with a flower on their head dropping into a question mark.
Image description: Illustration of a non binary person with turquoise hair, light brown skin, purple lips and clouds scattered with stars for eyes. There are flowers and leaves surrounding them in magenta, pink, purple and mustard.
Image Description: Illustration of a person with curvy hair in a ponytail. They are wearing a yellow patterned top and have their arms in an embrace. In the space between the embrace: the phrase, 'making space for rest without apologies' is hand lettered in blue. The person is surrounded by pink scribbly lines.