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shira seri levi | illustrator

@shira_sun

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Illustrator, sometimes professor
At @nyuniversity & @cunyedu
🖤 Jerusalem-Brooklyn

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I created a series of 13 illustrations for this week’s New Yorker, for a devastating and essential story by Mohammed R. Mhawish on Gaza’s mental health crisis and how Palestinian therapists are helping others while enduring displacement and loss themselves.

It was an honor to contribute to this piece. Thank you @aviva.tny for the trust and thoughtful direction.

@newyorkermag by @shira_sun

My first comic diary, hope you will like it.
and don’t worry, I’m here for a year now and learned to enjoy canceling meetings too.

#comicsdiary #rainyday #inkdrawing #intweeklycomic #newyorkcity by @shira_sun

These days are so sad and full of new and old pain, so I wanted to share a small side project that brings me a little comfort. In times when the news doesn’t make any sense to me, poetry still provides sanctuary for both hope and deep sorrow.

My great-aunt Bracha Serri was a poet, but I only discovered her work later in life - my grandfather lied about it because she wrote erotic poetry that “brought shame to the family”. She also wrote feminist poetry (famously against child marriage in the Yemenite Jewish community), political poetry (anti-Zionist and supportive of Palestinian liberation), anti-racist poetry (against the treatment of Middle Eastern Jews by the Israeli establishment), and also mystical and Kabbalistic poetry (rebelling against her family’s religious beliefs), drawing inspiration and scents from all the cities she lived in - Sana’a, Jerusalem and Berkeley.

Though her name appears in some gender-studies syllabi, Bracha Serri’s uncompromising voice meant rejection by every publisher, and she published her own books in small quantities until her last day. These days when I feel lonely, not really sure where my home is anymore, reading her is like receiving a warm hug from an aunt who, even though I met only as a child, knew the words I’d need to hear when I turned into a woman.

I’m sharing some drawings and sketches inspired by her work, along with one poem translated by Yaffa Berkovits Murciano. My hope is to gradually translate and illustrate more of her writing, perhaps even get her work officially published one day.

Thank you so much for reading this far, I hope you are safe and that we can all find new and old friends to help us carry the pain and fix this miserable world. by @shira_sun

I decided to try animating parts of a sketchbook page and somehow ended up spending so many hours animating almost everything.
I haven’t done cel animation in a couple of years, so I’m feeling very rusty, but maybe that’s what finally made it fun again.
Anyway, I hope you’ll enjoy some of my ghostly memories and dreams 🖤 by @shira_sun

Some more sketchbook pages and a picture of me as a young artist by @shira_sun

Wanted to share two more illustrations from the poetry zine of @nadera_mushthaa , “Things that make a hole in my heart”, along with one of her poems I think about a lot.

If you’d like to read more of Nadera’s poetry and support her work, you can buy a copy of the zine through this link: https://www.coastallinespress.com/p/things-that-make-a-hole-in-my-heart. It would mean a lot for me.

Thank you 🖤 by @shira_sun

Over the last few months, I’ve been slowly working on illustrating a zine of poetry by @nadera_mushthaa . Her poems walked with me wherever I went, and I would love for you to read them too.
I used to feel that love, poetry, and art had no use anymore. Working on this zine alongside Nadera and other incredibly creative and kind people reminded me how powerful they are.

Sharing here the cover, Nadera’s opening statement and one of her beautiful poems. I invite you to read the rest and support her via the @zinesfromgaza website.

The zine was edited by Leah Harris, Mandy Minor, and Karan Rathod. Layout and design by Selin Doğaner and me. by @shira_sun

Home diaries, it’s been 6 years in the U.S. today. by @shira_sun

Some ink drawings from my sketchbook of my favorite things (women and cats) by @shira_sun

This week I mostly drew ladies with cigarettes and wine by @shira_sun

Some old and new sketchbook pages, my childhood inner Yemeni witch and 2 poems by Nikki Giovanni that I think about a lot these days. by @shira_sun

Passover, shabbat and other holidays captured by Amr’s camera. by @shira_sun