Safer at Home: Conversation with MariNaomi

Please join for the second in a series of conversations with contemporary artists as part of the ongoing online exhibition, Safer at Home. For this conversation, curator Alexis Bard Johnson will speak with artist MariNaomi about her daily comic drawings, overall practice, and thoughts on “safer at home.” 

For years, the artist has been drawing a new comic every day and sharing them weekly. As the current crisis has emerged, these daily drawings reflect the changes both physical and psychological of the time, as well as the continuing needs, joys, and challenges of daily existence. Her drawing from March 16, 2020 addresses grocery shopping in a pandemic, racism against Asians, and the balance between self-care and care for others. To see this and other images, click HERE. 

MariNaomi is the award-winning author and illustrator of the graphic memoirs Kiss & Tell: A Romantic Resume, Ages 0 to 22, Dragon's Breath and Other True Stories, Turning Japanese, and I Thought YOU Hated ME, and the Life on Earth graphic novel trilogy. Her work has been featured in many publications, websites, and museums, including the LA Review of Books, the New Yorker, the Smithsonian, the Cartoon Art Museum, the Asian Art Museum, and the Japanese American Museum. She is the creator/administrator of the Cartoonists of Color, Queer Cartoonists, and Disabled Cartoonists Databases, and cohost of the Ask Bi Grlz podcast.

Image: Daily Comic, May 5, 2020.