Elyssa Rider
Elyssa is a queer Japanese and British illustrator and comic artist working in pencil, traditional paint and digital paint. She uses humour in her comics to release grief, rage, and shame through raw depictions of the encounters she experiences in life.
Through making art about things that are usually kept private, Elyssa gives permission to the viewer to join her in shamelessness. In her paintings, Elyssa uses bold, clean, vibrant colour to depict voluptuous queer scenes. She depicts romantic global majority couples in a way that is free from a fetishising gaze.
Artist's vision
Elyssa was interested in responding to the Unforgotten Lives exhibition with dignified, respectful and sensitive illustrations to bring to life how these individuals may have looked. She was particularly interested in depicting the love captured in the archives, as much of her work focuses on romance and sensuality, and she wanted to create work which brings recognition to how people at the time were willing to go against the grain in the name of love and connection.
Elyssa hoped her exhibition response will help to fill the silences of who these people were, whilst avoiding harmful stereotypes and caricatures. Her interest is in depicting people of colour in a celebratory and careful way, whether they are doing something extraordinary, or simply existing doing regular everyday things.
“I aim to make people feel seen, particularly queer people of colour, whose stories are often overlooked or omitted entirely.”
Elyssa Rider in Conversation
In her own words, read about what drew Elyssa to the Art at the Archive project and more about the work that they created
