You can find ALIYAH ART tabling down artist alley at these upcoming events!
The London Illustration Fair – 24-26th Nov 2023
ANIMECON London – 3-4th Feb 2024
Hyper Japan London – 19-20th July 2024
HP Printables x Black History Month Collab
I was presented with the exciting opportunity by HP to design 3 printables for their Black History Month UK theme.
Aside from starting a new full time job, taking this on and the surprise addition of tabling at EGX. October has been a very busy month for me, but I am so grateful to these opportunities and this was one I couldn’t pass up on!
You can find my completed HP Printable designs here https://printables.hp.com/gb/en/collection/black-history-month?input=&sortDirection=date_desc&searchType=&page=1
EGX Artist Alley
It was a long time coming but I finally debuted my first con down artist alley – at EGX in October 2023!
It was such a fun experience, a big learning curve and an opportunity I’ve been waiting for so long to happen. I enjoyed it so much that it’s motivated me to do more artist alleys – watch this space!
Truly it’s ALIYAH ART to the world!
anime through black eyes – solo exhibition
The self-curated solo exhibition “Anime Through Black Eyes” commemorates all of Aliyah’s works that widen the horizon of diversity in anime form. It also celebrates characters from anime and other popular culture that people, especially in the black community, look up to and are empowered by.
Anime is popular in the black community, its depiction of emotional and beautiful stories, the protagonist’s struggles,and their ability to overcome obstacles. It evokes courage in us, and it’s exciting to watch the story’s progression. With the hurdles people of colour face every day, having to jump through more hoops to get further in life, anime has been a saving grace where that struggle is relatable.
an ode to time – group exhibition
An Ode to Time is a collaborative Session by Repose Gallery and Peckham Levels. Through an Open Call, nine artists were selected to make works around personal history and the history of South-East London. Harking to lost industrial records, geographic myths, and personal accounts – the doors to a time passed are flung open and their ecstatic telling lie ahead. The past is made anew.
I am very happy to announce that I am exhibiting my BLACK LIVES STILL MATTER piece in this exciting group exhibition with Repose Gallery at Peckham Levels.
26th July – 6th August
Private View: 28th July @ 6:00 PM
Artists:
Ellie Osborne* (@ellieosborneart)
Noah Smith (@_noahmakesart_)
Aliyah Art (@aliyahart)
Luke Chin-Joseph (@luke.chin171)
Charlotte Pannell
Diana Silva Amado & Felix Howarth (@dianasilvaamado @felixhowarth)
Grace Dudzicki (@gdzdzdzd)
House of Baby (@houseofbaby.studio)
Meroë (@meroedraws)
AfroFlux Con 2023
I was invited to table at AfroFlux Con earlier this month – it was an exciting and both scary opportunity for me as it was my first time selling my artwork outside of London! I’m so happy I went to this event and honoured which had some other wonderful and innovative stalls from artists to jewellery makers.
The feedback and popularity of my artwork was amazing. ALIYAH ART is going national to sell her artwork! I am definitely motivated to sell my art in person at more events across the UK now.
THE BLUE PERIOD – 1ST SOLO EXHIBITION
From February 15th – 17th 2023, I did my first solo art exhibition which took place in the Making Space gallery in Poplar.
From January until February, I had a residency where I was using the gallery as my studio space. Here I created and painted my original artworks, even pushing myself to go bigger and do a big piece! It was refreshing to have so much space to myself. Growing up in a council flat in central London meant I was met with many creative opportunities, but never having the space to thrive or utilise them, it usually proved difficult. I think this has subconciously resulted in my work to being on a smaller scale.
The opportunity to work in the Making Space studio excited me and it was the first time I had so much room to work with! I challenged myself to paint on a larger scale and to see how I would thrive working with bigger pieces. I really felt I got to spread my wings as an artist and I managed to produce pieces I never otherwise would have before. Making Space literally made time and space for me to do this and I am so thankful!
The title of the exhibition being The Blue Period is me comemorating the end of my “sad girl era” where I really drew from my feelings from years 2017-2022 but I feel like I have overcome this part of myself and creating these pieces helped me to process my thoughts and emotions. Blue is also my favourite colour – it’s both calming and deep, it can even represent royalty.
Galvanise Summer Exhibition
Summer 2022 has been full of surprises and amazing experiences! I’m very thankful to all of the people and opportunities I’ve had when it comes to displaying and exhibiting my art.
I am proud to say I am part of the second group exhibition at Spitafield Studios, where the theme is ‘Galvanise’ and the piece I selected was BLACK LIVES STILL MATTER (printed to size A1 on foam board). I wanted to go big for this piece and make a stamp in the exhibition. This is one of the first pieces you see on display as you enter the exhibition and the feedback from visitors on the opening night have been astounding. The representation and powerful message people received from the piece was envigorating for me as an artist, I am so motivated to create more pieces with important messages. Most of my art is melancholy and drawn for fun and beauty, but I would love to even more start creating art with a message to the masses too.
The main piece is for sale but there are also smaller A5 size prints available to purchase too.
The exhibition is up until November 2022, please check it out!
MAKE SHIFT CREATE – BLACK CREATORS RESIDENCY
Make.Shift.Create is a charity foundation based in Brixton and they reached out to me on Instagram to select me as one of their black creatives for their 3 months residency programme.
This is an exciting opportunity I have been waiting for! I’ll be able to get more recognition as an artist in London, I also get to sell my art merchandise in their shop and online!
To commerate this achievement, I am going to release an exclusive collection just for this residency which starts on Sunday 24th April with the event at Pop Brixton. I’ll be selling art prints and a few new exclusive merch so please keep a look out.
I am truly grateful to have this opportunity to branch out my audience and get my artwork out there, especially to bring joy to those who see it and they get to support me and keep a piece of art for themselves so they too can feel empowered. There is so much power in seeing yourself in illustrations and paintings, something which I didn’t see a lot of growing up. I show myself and black women love when I create my illustrations.
ALIYAH ART 