Pao Arts Center

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Sanika Phawde

Sanika Phawde (she/they) is an illustrator, educator, cartoonist, and reportage artist born and raised in India and based between Providence, Boston, and New York City.

https://www.sanikap.com/comics-zines
@thejackfruitslayer

Behance: https://www.behance.net/sanikaphawde2

Artist Statement

Through autobiographical comics, zines, graphic novels, visual essays, drawings on location gouache paintings and illustrated interviews with members of my local community, my work strives to capture and communicate instances of emotional connection and intimacy, queer immigrant culture and conversations people have over meals.

Living Here on Borrowed Time,
2020
Micron pens, procreate App
20 - 5" x 7" panels

Living Here on Borrowed Time: A comic about how immigrants on temporary visas
move through life feeling hyper-aware of their visa status and expiry date. And how
absurd it feels to be living in America on borrowed time--not knowing if we will be
allowed to stay in our homes with the people we love and the communities we’ve built.
Hoping that we will be able to sow new roots wherever we do end up in the future, and
most of all feeling desperate to have made a mark here, before we have to leave.

Comic published in the Opp Art section of the Nation Magazine about hoax remedies for covid popularized in media in 2020.