About

contact:

︎ livaverettart@gmail.com
︎ @yougonext

commissions: closed


LA,CA
2348—23476/23
Diam Est

 

LIV AVERETT

dynamic, imaginative, and inclusive designs

Black queer creative with love for design, illustration, comedy, + the gooey parts inbetween.

Currently: Design @ Mythical Entertainment (Sporked)

Prev: Design @ SMOSH, Design @ UC Santa Barbara, Art Director @ UM...Magazine

Artist’s Statement:

Sometimes, sticking out like a sore thumb shapes you into a strong middle finger. Based in Los Angeles, I centralize my practice on visualizing the dissonance between my relationships with my identity as a child versus as an adult through acidic, vibrant color and jarring, cartoonish shape. Like most people of color, I became aware of my own “otherness” at a very young age - being thrown into the deep end of race and identity politics before I knew what it was that set me apart, created a warped sense of self that began to fester. While this dissonance was a source of discomfort for my younger self, as an adult I have learned to draw from it in order to poke fun at the social norms we attempt to fit my young Black and queer individuals into. I base my practice in digital illustration, multimedia sculpture, and digital media, centralizing the vibrancy of Black femininity as the primary motif of my work.


In my graphic design work, I draw from the same principles of vibrant color and graphic, cartoonish shapes, and edit them to fit the needs/interests of my clients while still maintaining a level of fun and excitement (see here). I enjoy exploring many styles and visuals in graphic design and am always eager to try something different and new.


While I often draw from this hyperaware upbringing to inspire my work, I am not exclusively informed by my lived experiences as a Black queer woman; I pull my visual aesthetic from the curious amalgamation of media I treasured growing up - the vibrant colors and illustrative, nonsensical shapes of Nicktoons and Cartoon Network; the Black power and pride of 90’s R&B music video reruns on MTV; centralizing race and resistance a la Kara Walker and Barkley Hendricks.


Through this admittedly chaotic mix of influences, I aim to combat the expectations society places on Black individuals, and process the serious lived experiences of our personhood with an intentionally opposite aesthetic of cartoonish whimsy, creating an ironic contrast between the content and presentation.


In my recent works “So Fresh n So Clean,” “Montero,” and “Fire n Icy”(2022) I execute this idea by creating a series of three digital illustrations, placing three different Black figures in the spotlight - a carefree Black girl, an individual all iced out, and Black queer icon Lil Nas X - and granting them the space to be their unapologetic selves. Intentionally planning the size of these works to fit on a phone screen, I aimed to create visuals that represent how I want Black culture to be portrayed in the media - with excitement, respect, and love. Through vibrant color, various textures, and the highlighting of traditionally Black features, I create a space where Black individuals can exist in a judgment-free, solely celebratory space. By choosing to make their appearances illustrative and cartoonish with the addition of a pixelated grain, I create the influences and representation I wish I would have had growing up - kickass cartoon heroes who embrace themselves and the culture.


By embracing this “otherness,” I give my inner child a chance at catharsis - by creating these unapologetically cartoonish and whimsical works as an adult, I acknowledge, rip up, and throw away the antagonism of my identity, and overshadow it with the vibrancy of Black womanhood. By creating my works in both the physical and digital spheres, I embrace my eagerness to explore as many avenues of creativity as possible, and aspire to share a more expansive perspective on identity into as many different social realms as possible - embracing the vibrant, chaotic, loud and colorful.