We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Nadia Burgess. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Nadia below.

Nadia, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you tell us about a time that your work has been misunderstood? Why do you think it happened and did any interesting insights emerge from the experience?

I’m an artist of color and because of that a lot of times I get put into a box by other people of color, particularly Black people. And that might be a controversial thing to say but for me it’s true. In my experience whenever a Black person comes to see my art I think they expect to see very afro-centric work from me and that all the figures of I create should be afro-centric, almost as if I’m not allowed to show other ethnicities, or not allowed to show Black people in other lights, like through a fantasy, sci-fi, whimsical lens.

Don’t get me wrong, for the artists whos work are afro-centric that’s beautiful and important to see, but for it to be expected of me puts me in a narrow box that I don’t appreciate. What has happened often to me is someone will come up to my work glance it over and say, “You’re work is beautiful but you don’t really have a lot of Black representation in your work”, to which I then respond with “That’s not true at all. Did you not notice my ‘Sky Ballerina’ piece, or the “Sea of Hair’ piece, or the fairy piece, or…” and Ill go down the list of my work that clearly have Black representation (or I at least thought was clear). And then the person looks sheepishly at me and says something along the lines of “Oh wow you do have Black people in your work. I didn’t notice at first.” Which I genuinely believe they didn’t notice, and that’s because they are only use to seeing Black people in a particular lens, but its a lens of our own doing, not that that in of itself is a bad thing, but it does limit us.

In a nutshell I’m going through a similar crisis to the main character, Monk, in the 2023 film “American Fiction”, where his very talented writing doesn’t get picked up because its “not Black enough” to which he can not help but respond back with “It is a Black book. I’m Black and it’s my book!” For me it would be, “It is Black art. I’m Black and it’s my art!”

I know as a people we have gone through a long history of reclaiming and acutely defining our identity, but we must also grow into understanding that we are much more than the identity we are born from, and we can be both that and more. We can be the nerd that loves anime, the writer who loves Greek mythology, or the artist who loves drawing fantastical imagery…

Nadia, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I grew up in Brooklyn, New York in a very culturally diverse area, which I believe helped shaped my art work and personality in the best ways. Sometimes people have a narrow view of the world because they haven’t had much exposure to other people unlike themselves, I was lucky enough to grow up in an area where that was not the case.

I have been drawing literally all my life, when I was child I use to draw on the walls, which didn’t make my mother happy but it did show I had an interest in the arts. My art was published in Archie Comics when I was in elementary school, I went to a high school for the arts, and in college I studied film. I have been selling my work for a little over a decade now and I started doing that by applying to comic conventions, art shows, and markets where I get a table or a wall to present my work to the public and sell it.

I have a specific interest in illustration work like comic book and cartoon art. I do both fan art work and original work which I present very colorfully. A lot of artist are intimidated in using color in their works, but I’m not, it’s actually my favorite part of the process. The coloring part is when the images really come together and bring life.

I sell art prints, bookmarks, keychains, and other similar products of my work. When people look at work I want them to have a feeling of nostalgia but more importantly a feeling of deeper exploration. Currently the piece I’m most proud of is my “Lady Caribbean” piece which shows a woman being the universal portrayal of the West Indies. That piece has become my most successful and bought print.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

What society can do best to support artists is to not so willing accept AI art. Seeing as how A.I. art essentially takes previous art that was made, form it into an algorithm and that shoots it back out to the public just goes to show how essential human artists are, have been, and always will be. Support art produced by actual people who had to take a lifetime to develop their skills.

Not many people have a talent for the visual arts and it is already a highly competitive field and viewed as non-essential, we don’t need to now compete with robots. You’d think decades of films showing us where over advance A.I. could lead us would make humans take a pause in making certain steps in our so called evolution, but no. Alas we humans are retched creatures as we are inspiring ones.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

I think what non-creatives might struggle to understand about a creative’s journey is how we can do a field that has no guarantee of being a stable career. The short answer is because we have a deep passion inside of us that needs to be released and expressed into the world. But to be honest I completely understand the sentiment , as much I love being a creative it’s not easy, and I need to eat.

It’s not easy making creative aspirations lucrative, but creatives also have a misunderstanding towards non-creatives need for regularity and routine. There is something there that creatives need to learn, that although are artistic passions are important we must also learn to introduce practicality into our model of work in order to survive off the thing we love to do. I’m all about being an artist, but I’m no about being a starving one. And often times being a starving artist is romanticized by creatives as form of non-conformity towards in keeping our craft pure, which in my opinion is down right silly.

In life the answer is almost always somewhere in the middle of two opposing sides. Non-creatives need to understand our need to create and Creatives need to understand that figuring out how to make our craft financially viable is nearly as important as producing the art itself.

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