We’re hoping that you’re taking care of yourself during quarantine + pandemic ❤︎ While times are consistently changing changed and we are consistently adapting – Soulstice could not host any in-person art shows through 2020, we’re beyond excited to announce that we have launched our first-ever zine titled FREE SPACE.

This community art zine was created as a means of questioning and discussing the concepts of “space” and “freedom”. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, protests, and the many events of 2020 – this zine is a collective space and collaborative project to step back, cope and respond. What is space? What is freedom? How can we find freedom during a time where we are confined in space? The many works in this zine bring to life these questions – music, poetry, and visual art interpret “space” and “place.” Proceeds from sales were donated to Homies Empowerment and La Casa de las Madres.

Carmina Delos Reyes

she/her

Carmina Delos Reyes is a young Filipina artist from the Bay Area but has relocated to Manila, Philippines. They are still trying to figuring out their art style by trying out different mediums and styles, but believe that there is value in being versatile. They believe art is important in the formation of the self and of society. It gives space to show one’s vision, interests, values, and perspective.

Daisygirl

she/her

Daisygirl submitted their music titled LoveMeSoDaisyGirl. Her sweet vocals, psychedelic melodies, and ethereal guitar riffs take you deeper into her world and most heartfelt emotions.

Shandili Hegde

she/her

Shandili Hegde is a young artist from India exploring self-expression through mediums and moods 🌻 They are currently diving deep into 3D rendering and ink illustrations.

Philippa Steinberg

she/they

Philippa Steinberg (Miriampippa) grew up in Hamburg, Germany. She found her passion for drawing in her early teens and began to self-teach, inspired by an online art community. They now study Human Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley. Their goal is to make science accessible through art.

Freedom is being allowed to grow. The illustration represents Philippa’s move from Germany to the Bay Area, a place where they found a community that encouraged growth in their creativity and queerness alike. 

Catastrophe

she/her

Catastrophe was born in Toronto and raised in Hong Kong. She’s a freelance product designer by trade and is passionate about making information accessible to everyone.  

As the moon rises she transforms into the vessel of catastrophe.fm – an intergalactic radio station that sends out frequencies across time-space to tell all you hidden aliens out there: I feel you. The frequencies may crystalize in the form of comic books, resin structures, illustrations, clothes, words, sounds… She doesn’t know for sure yet, but the microphone is getting plugged in, the transmitter is warming up, the antennas are stretching upward. She’ll have a good show for you soon, stay tuned ❤

Yasmine Rayyis

she/her

Yasmine is a queer femme Palestinian/Georgian/Armenian. She studies linguistics and history and makes narratives through art. Her art focuses on the themes of intersectional identity, anxiety, pleasure, and a journey of healing.

Labdhi Shah

she/her

Labdhi Shah is an artist based in Ahmedabad, India. Trained as an economist, clinical psychologist, and art therapist, she is a self-taught artist. She specializes in finger-painted artworks created from intuition without any reference or pre-sketch, distilling the purest expression of her emotion into her art. Her passions include traveling and studying human complexity.

This intuitive finger-painted artwork in Free Space is her ode to acceptance of oneself. She believes that the journey of understanding the universe starts from undressing the fears of one’s soul and understanding them unconditionally. To accept oneself for who one truly is, independent of what society makes one out to be, is the only path towards freedom.

Amanda Lee

she/they

For Amanda, queerness is dynamic, expressive, and free. Growing up, they have struggled with restricting their identity to match an external gaze. She paints to remind herself of resilience, celebration, and community.

Sumati Wadhwa

she/her

Our zine features the first poem of Sumati they’ve ever submitted – we hope you enjoy the lovely written work they’ve graciously shared in this space.

Wednesday Blue

she/they

Wednesday Blue is a Filipinx LGBTQ+ artist from the Bay Area. They love bright colors, drawing gay love, and representing filipinx girls through their art.

Free space to Wednesday means being able to live in your truth. It means it is a space where you can love someone without fear of your life. It means holding hands with whoever you choose without being afraid of public confrontation.

Sophia Quach

she/her

Sophia is a queer Vietnamese artist who graduated from UC Berkeley. She expresses her emotions and freedom through acrylic and oil paintings, defining love and loss through swirls of colorful imagery. She has been able to free herself through her art and hopes to continue to share pieces of her heart with the world. 

Jakations

he/his

This SF artist explores space and freedom through acrylic, gouache, and photography.

Taryn Reyes

she/her

Taryn is a Bay Area divine being who navigates space and freedom through dancing and creative writing.

Lowkey The Optimist

she/her

Visual artist from Houston, TX and has been a painter for 4 years now. Art has been a love of theirs since youth. They started drawing at an early age like most kids and just never stopped. Art has always been an outlet and like therapy for them.

Rebecca Poarch

she/her

Her work aims to tell stories of girlhood, love, loss, sexuality, and other physical and emotional experiences, creating a personal mythology and diaristic narrative. Through painting a dreamland of hyper-femininity, she creates a world of bright light from darkness or a utopia from a place of vulnerability. She has been able to find freedom and liberation through healing her physical body and connecting to her deeper sense of femininity. Making their recent work has been a freeing experience and has allowed her to love themselves freely.

Gabrielle Sauelenè

she/her

*** TW // SA

❝ This particular piece was made 6 months after I was sexually harassed/assaulted by a man during a bus ride. Having grown up my entire life being told something like this happens when a man is provoked sexually in some way it came as a great shock to me when it happened to me as I was clad in thick winter clothing. I never believed when older women in my family said those things, but for some reason, that moment made it so clear. I still haven’t talked about this with anyone aside from my partner who was there and my therapist. The event caused me to spiral emotionally, and without realizing it, I stopped making work entirely. The work that I make typically revolves around my own sexuality and desires, but the entire ordeal made me forget just how much freedom I felt in photographing myself that way. When I make these self-portraits I feel empowered. As Audre Lorde says “Within the celebration of the erotic in all of our endeavors, my work becomes a conscious decision – a longed-for bed which I enter gratefully and from which I rise empowered.” (Audre Lorde, “Uses of the Erotic”). This piece represents that return to making work, and the sense of a warm embrace and empowerment I receive from doing what I love. ❞

Kenny Solorio

he/his

Amor y Paz wey! This Bay Area artist travels through freedom and space through poetry and creative writing.

Marisa Quartin

she/her

Marisa Luana Quartin is a British artist with ancestry in Angola, Portugal, and Trinidad she focuses heavily on showing the beauty of black faces and bodies in her art. A portrait and figurative painter, she creates artwork that is designed to convey emotion, utilizing earthy base tones.
A media specialist by day, she re-discovered a passion for painting as a way to express her identity and activism.

Thomas Sereno

he/his

Bay Area-based photographer from SoCal. Thomas explores freedom and change starts within ourselves.

Natercia Chang

she/her

//the other piece// was created during and after the passing of her father. When she started filming, the footage of the journey relates to the extent of the physical freedom of how far one could get: the ability to move from a physically, socially, and culturally confined/suppressed place (home; home country). After the death of her father, the footage seemed to be the memories or the dreams that she hoped to have to go beyond the physical boundaries, that she could travel emotionally to another place where peace and freedom await. Similar to many of their other works, she talks about the fear and conflicts of the post-colonial society.

C4MR

he/his

Captivating Abstract. Mediums Relentlessly. Unorthodox Creative is located in SF. He is a photographer and designer utilizing beautiful artistry to create unique pieces. Freedom is unapologetic self-expression. He finds freedom when his space is confined by being present and not letting the current downfall define my outcomes.

All jeans used in his material was made by Om, @deadbydawnnn

Erhan Us

he/his

In his submission, Erhan discusses how society limits and frightens us with traditions and ‘gossip’. The individuals who reveal this order, are silenced by the tyrants.

Conceptual artist and author. 1987, Ankara. After Bilkent University TH Management; he was granted 25+ local and international/honorary awards, with respect to his eleven NGO presidency and marketing projects. Participated in 70+ exhibitions in 20+ countries. He continues his studies on Sociology & Philosophy at Istanbul and Anadolu Universities. Us is a member of Photographic & Visual Arts Federations, whose book Digital Prestige was published in ’18.

Destiny Stanton

she/her

A beginner artist from North Dakota who’s just trying to get herself out there! Visual submission is digitally manipulated imagery.

Caitie Kohl

she/her

Caitie Kohl’s hyper-sexualized mixed media paintings are exciting and absurd. The human female form is amalgamated with non-human matriarchal creatures – creating surreal and unsettling compositions. Kohl’s work explores and plays with the clout of the male libido in our society. Pertaining to the concept of “FREE SPACE”: her work is a protest on societal gender norms and standards. The hybrid female figures depicted in her paintings allude to a sense of freedom and power, claiming their space as matriarchal beings.

PAINTPLUGG

she/her

Inter-Dimensional Art Dealer from LA, but based in the Bay.

Andi

she/her

Peruvian artist based in Lima, Perú. She loves drawing, painting, mixed media, and digital art, but also approaches work by using any material that allows her to create with meaning. Andi’s work is inspired by her social context of being sexually different, her friends of days and forever, her loves, her family to laugh or to cry, and her origins. She likes to express herself without fears about who she is, where does she come from, and where she thinks she’s going. Her work is a kind of “thoughts book” from a queer person to another one.

Kurupi

he/him

Kurupi is a punk/hip hop project by rapper/songwriter Josh Sanchez. Sanchez fills his music with his views on identity, mental health, and death through genre-bending, energetic instrumentals. The name Kurupi comes from his roots as a Paraguayan-American. In the Guarani culture, the Kurupi can be many things depending on the region, but Sanchez grew up knowing it as a boogeyman-type figure.

Raina Beigler

she/her

Raina is a black mixed creative who can’t wait to share her love for collages with you all! This image was inspired by the feeling of black joy. She believes it is freeing to show the world you’re thriving despite the barriers put in place by those in power.

Danna

she/her

Danna is an East Bay multimedia artist. Her submission piece sheds light on the importance of protecting our sacred waters and the life and freedom it provides us with.