50 Rebel Women: Celebration of Strong Women through a Mix of Photography and Drawing

Image via vixharrisart/Instagram

With her 50 Rebel Women series, Vix Harris decided to showcase pioneers for a year who broke the glass ceiling — each in their own way. Influenced by her training as a textile designer, this British-born artist adorns the black-and-white portraits of these epic women with brightly colored motifs.

Now residing in Singapore, Harris has spent her childhood in Kenya and Malawi, and for twenty years she has traveled all over the world, meeting and teaching people of all cultures and backgrounds; she places intersectional feminism at the heart of her artistic process. As inspiration for this project, she quotes Nina Simone: “You can’t help it. An artist’s duty is to reflect the times.”

Harris says she selected for the project iconic women from different cultures based on their talents and life paths — among them the super-producer Oprah Winfrey and pop star Beyoncé Knowles. Her art has a strong message of female empowerment and representation through symbols of their culture and traditions she finds fascinating.

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