Sonita

Illustration

Editing & publishing: 70magenta
My portrait of Sonita Alizadeh, a young Afghan rapper and activist fighting against forced marriages.

Sonita first gained attention at the age of sixteen when she released the music video Brides for Sale to escape a marriage her parents were planning for her (even though it is illegal for women to sing solo publicly in Iran, where she was living at the time).
Sonita, the film by Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami documenting her remarkable story of rebellion and passion, is well worth a watch.

The occasion for this artwork came about when 70magenta invited me to contribute to the art section of “Quadrifluox”, an awesome concept book about offset printing with CMYK fluo inks, color management and special effects.

Since fluo inks glow in the dark when lit up by a UV lamp, I made use of this feature to get my Sonita image working on two levels: daylight (covered truth) and darkness (exposed truth).