Finding a New Voice: A Full Length Interview with Illustrator Bianca Xunise
Interview conducted by Charlene Haparimwi for Hooligan Magazine
BIANCA XUNISE is the epitome of black girl magic. The twenty-nine year old graphic designer and full time artist is unapologetic in every aspect of her life, but it took her some time to get to that place. Xunise (pronounced Eunice) has bylines with HelloGiggles, Bustle, and her latest and proudest venture, the political cartoon space, The Nib. Her Twitter and Instagram have a number of followers, as well as her Etsy store.
Her drawings are simple, but powerful, going from sweet and funny in the beginning of her career to more longform, deeper and political cartoons. Hooligan had the chance to sit down with her in her spacious Chicago apartment in the picturesque Ravenswood neighborhood. Xunise is effortlessly beautiful as her soft, natural curls fall over her horn-rimmed glasses as she smiles at the camera. Her quiet confidence emanates throughout her room, which glows from sunlight streaming in on this brisk Friday morning.
Though seasoned in interviews, Xunise has an authenticity in her answers and a thoughtfulness in her responses. She is a voice for black female illustrators and artists everywhere. Her words ring true in the plight of recent events and in the prime of her career she has nowhere to go but up.
WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO BECOME AN ARTIST?
I, like a lot of artists, have kind of always been an artist. It’s kind of second nature to me, it’s almost like asking when did you decide to become black? (Laughs) It’s always been a part of who I am. It really wasn’t a choice so much as when I decided it was something that I wanted to do full time, and that came later in life. I’ve always been involved in the arts. My mom is an artist, both my parents are artists. So I’ve been surrounded by it my whole life.
WHAT DOES YOUR DAY TO DAY LOOK LIKE?
I’ll give you two versions of it. So, the boring day to day with my 9–5, I get up, go to work and I come home. That’s it. (Laughs) And then my artist day to day — because I’m taking some time off from work now — is doing comics full time. It’s mostly meetings and pitching to people. I try to seek inspiration everywhere. Recently it’s kind of been a nonstop brigade of things happening in the world that has inspired me to illustrate.
I know for me, illustrating and doing my comics is a method of therapy. It’s kind of just workshopping what’s going on inside of me and inside my head. Getting it on paper helps me feel not so anxious and overwhelmed and bothered by what’s going on in the world. And I can see that progression from when my work first became public from when I was working for HelloGiggles until now. My comics are less about “How many slices of pizza can I eat?” and more about my womanhood and blackness and things like that.
HOW DOES YOUR ROLE AS A BLACK WOMAN IMPACT YOUR ART?
There’s statements that’ve been said before that I’ll say now, which is that there’s really nothing more punk, or nothing more political than just being a black woman. It kind of comes with the package. Even if your grandma or your mom or auntie don’t call themselves a feminist, listen to the way she talks. There’s nothing more feminist or intersectional then some of the stuff our moms or grandmas or aunts have said. It just comes with the weight of being a black woman.
I kind of got tired of the sugary sweetness of my work, and I just felt like there wasn’t that many voices like me out there. I would go to the places that I do have my work now and see no voice from a black woman, or maybe just one or two and feel like that’s not nearly enough. You can have twenty white male point of views in the world, and one black woman voice isn’t enough, or two or even zero. I would see comics drawn by white men of the plight of the black woman and be like “Okay, well this is your idea of it but this isn’t necessarily true.”
[Like the movie Loving], I have issues with films like that because it’s written and directed by a white man, like how can you tell the voice of this woman of color in this relationship when this is something that has never affected you? You could’ve at least had a black female writer write this. I just feel like my work is conscious of what’s going on in the world.
When I was doing a lot of my work in the beginning I was kind of speaking out of what was just plain old fashioned depression and I was kind of working through some things there, and I was 26 when I started so I was going through a quarter-life crisis as well. Now I have a stronger sense of who I am that I’m not afraid to show that. I was afraid to show my blackness when I first started off as an artist, because I didn’t want to be known as that “militant black cartoonist” and now I’m like I don’t care. (Laughs)
WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR PROUDEST ACCOMPLISHMENT SO FAR AS AN ARTIST?
Honestly, my proudest accomplishment so far is the work that I have done for The Nib, and to be able to write longer form stories than just Instagram squares. That’s been about a year, year and a half long journey for me to be able to tell longer form stories, captivate my audience, and express myself without kind of stopping halfway and getting frustrated. Because that’s what would happen before when my comics were so short and I would get stuck and feel like “Ugh, no one cares,” and make something short and sweet.
I would make somebody laugh, but I realized the phoniness of Instagram and social media in how we view things like memes. You see it, you laugh, and you move on but you’re not breaking down this meme or comic throughout your day and asking “What does this mean?” I mean there’s some that do that but most don’t. You laugh and then return to your reruns of Frasier on Netflix. (Laughs) Now that I have gotten some attention, I feel like I can take that same cuteness or ha-ha of my work and keep my audience captivated for longer.
WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCE OF ARTISTS GETTING PAID FOR THEIR WORK?
It’s incredibly important for artists to get paid for their work. I was offered a job to do something and they didn’t want to pay me, they wanted to pay me in stuff. I come from a [fashion] blogging background, and I remember the day I stopped blogging. I stopped blogging because they didn’t want to indict George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin case and after that I realized I don’t care what I’m wearing anymore. But I did the whole thing of going to Fashion Week, took pictures of clothes and got a free pair of shoes as compensation — as long as I took a picture of them. But now I’m like, I can’t survive on free shoes, and free glasses. I don’t want that, I don’t just want exposure.
I feel like a lot of that comes from the removal of art programs from many schools. If you’re not teaching children the importance of art, then when they become adults and run these companies and try to work with artists they will realize that they’re not worth being paid. It all stems from them never having an art appreciation. I feel like you have to start them young in appreciating art. So they can understand that I’m not just this person who does this magical spell, some candles, and then there’s some art made. I feel like there’s something that people don’t understand, say if I was just a person who was crunching numbers.
Artists are constantly putting pieces of themselves into their work. It’s pieces of ourselves that we will never get back, but you can find other ways to replenish yourself. That piece is gone, you’re paying for this piece of an artist. It’s so important, I’m all about telling artists to get their money. If that means putting your work on Etsy, or working with different newspapers or like me as a graphic designer, that’s a way of me making money for my art. It’s so important for them to appreciate us and understand the importance of what we do to keep this world functional.
WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE THOSE WANTING TO BE FULL-TIME ARTISTS?
My advice is that it takes time. It’s one of those things that no matter how instant this world becomes, real success will still take time. Your Instagram or your social media is your portfolio, and everything’s that great. But it doesn’t show the grime that comes on the back end. The grime goes into your 30’s. In high school, at 18 I had this perception that by the time I’m 30 I’ll have three kids, and a mansion and a dog.
But now I’m almost 30 I’m like, I have ramen, and a pack of beers in the fridge and let’s keep it moving. (Laughs) At the same time I also look back at my journey and I see these accomplishments that I’m having in my life and seen that it takes time. Besides taking time the other step for people in college who are interested in pursuing the arts is to always be working. Somebody is going to want your work.
If your time is spent on Instagram or Tumblr looking at someone else’s work, sighing and saying “Ugh, I had this same idea but they already did it so what’s the point of me doing it?” You’re just shooting yourself in the foot. Someone’s going to come to you and say “Oh you’re an artist?” and when you say yes they’re going to ask to see your work, or they’re going to say they have this great opportunity, let’s work together! Let me see what you’ve done before.
Even if all you have is your Instagram page at least it’s something to start from. But if you spend your whole time being wistful and wishing to be an artist but you’re not actively working as an artist then those opportunities are going to come and go, and you’ll miss a great opportunity.
One thing my mom always told me is that there’ll always be more opportunities, so at the same don’t get too hard on yourself. For me, things have come and gone and I wish I had been ready, but the ones that were right for me always came when I needed them.
So it takes time, I’m not even where I want to be but I know from experience that my journey is still going. Who doesn’t want to be on a journey, why would you want to be like “Okay, done?” I have art-ed, I have finished! It’s always a journey, I always want to be learning, I always want to be drawing, I always want to be looking at my work and being like “This sucks. Let’s work harder,” versus just being complacent and saying it’s done.
Charlene Haparimwi is a freelance writer for HelloGiggles, The Huffington Post, Seventeen Magazine, Hooligan Mag, and Femsplain. You can find more of her work at charlenehaparimwi.contently.com and on her Twitter.
