Visual Art

Sylvia Rivera

Gregory Antollino is a practicing civil rights lawyer in New York City. His legal website is www.antollino.com (updating needed). His photography website is www.gregshots.com. Follow for follow @marcellit0 (Instagram) or @civilrightslwyr (Twitter).

A note from the artist:

This is an image I took of Sylvia Rivera at the corner of 12th Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, Gay Pride 1993. She was a Stonewall Survivor and wore her banner with pride. Her outfit is completely together for a blinging hot day. What’s going on in her mind? Is it just an unflattering picture that makes Sylvia seem confused? (Please forgive the photographer; Pride is busy, even a kilometer from Christopher Street. The sun was not in my favor.) Nevertheless, suspending disbelief and judging from her gaze, which I shot from a lower angle, I see fear; I see rage; I see a person unaccepted not only by society, but the bougie onlookers who had no idea what she had done for the Queer Struggle.

I thank Passenger’s Journal for taking this, even the scan of a photo – one I probably printed at CVS – which was not quite right: too dark and overexposed. I found the negative just a month ago, having forgotten that I had submitted this. Then I misplaced the negative, along with another important shot, the one that leads all of the photos on my hobbyist  website. Then, Manolo Salas, an editor with Tony Vaccaro Studio, rescanned the negative and let in light. I didn’t know of Sylvia Rivera in 1993, and only realized I had taken this shot, after rewatching “The Death and Life of Marsh P. Johnson,” by David France. Sylvia’s struggle, in my opinion, is the thematic heart of that story. Then I just happened to be looking though albums and there she was.

It's been a tough couple of years for us all. We were already trapped by the pandemic. Because we couldn’t travel, it made me feel doubly secluded. I’m by nature an explorer always looking for something new to record. In life, I am (mostly) satisfied practicing law, but during the worst of the pandemic I needed to retravel to places I had been and, in doing so, I regained some optimism.

The Fall into Grace

Passengers Journal Visual Art PRIDE Prize Winner

Nikki Kelsay (she/they) is an American painter and visual artist based in the Chicago suburbs. She received her BFA in Art Education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2020) and eventually plans to receive her MFA in Painting and become a professor. Kelsay’s work is a personal exploration of queer identities, and female-presenting bodies and their relationships to culture and audience. Her oil paintings challenge the fetishization of queer women and women-loving woman (wlw) relationships that has informed the understandings and expectations in our society. She investigates the connections, intersections, and tensions between current practices of Christianity and sexuality. 

Born in 1998 in Wheaton, Illinois, Kelsay's perception of their own genderqueer, lesbian identity has been influenced by their Catholic upbringing. They have observed how religion influences social norms, including the male gaze and how misogyny is perpetrated through certain Christian ideals. Through portraits and narrative painting, Kelsay pushes against systemic, male-dominated power structures to represent the humanity of women and people within the LGBTQIA+ community. Kelsay studied in Florence, Italy in 2019 and is inspired by Renaissance-era painting as well as romantic, macabre, grotesque, and post-apocalyptic themes. Her work has been published in Impulse Magazine and Smile Politely and has been shown in numerous exhibitions and group shows throughout the Midwest, including the 2019 Undergraduate Art Show at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she won best in show. 

Get in touch via their website: www.nikkikelsayart.weebly.com Email: nkelsay2@gmail.com or Instagram: @nikkikelsay_art

Red Shoes

Margo Leonard is full time artist based in Nottingham UK originally from Ukraine. She was born with a great passion and love for art, developing her talent and style over many years of hard work firmly believing hard work allied with natural talent is the key to success. Becoming a teenager she acquainted herself with the work of artists such as Gustav Klimt and Boris Vallejo and got obsessed with figurative art. She has spent many a long hour observing their works trying to study how they achieved such skills, sometimes trying to emulate their work. She started her artistic journey in Ukraine but took great influence from her background as well as her few years living in Germany and travelling through Europe. Her work also draws from her passion for history and recreating worlds that have already existed. Her work ranges from fantasy, erotic dream-like and desolate settings to unique twists on basic portraiture. These days she creates paintings out from her home studio in Nottingham. Mythology and erotic art are her preferred subjects. She is to offer a space for you to see yourself in the subjects she paints. These bold, authentic free women and men who are ready to express who they are to the world! Her most recent award that she was very proud to receive was presented when she took part in a competition “American Gothic” and her painting was chosen to be published in the book American Gothic: 90th year appreciation. You can see her recent works in her Instagram account: https://instagram.com/erotic_mythology_art

Who Am I 4

Labdhi Shah is a self-taught artist from India, currently based in Atlanta. She received her B.A. in Economics & Psychology from Fergusson College, Pune, India, and her M.A. in Psychology from Indira Gandhi National Open University, India. She is also certified in Arts-Based Therapy from BAPU Trust, Pune. Her effort as an artist is to share her faith in the capacity of love, and to accept the uniqueness of every human being irrespective of race, color, gender, and culture. She works with a variety of media including watercolor, acrylic, charcoal, chalk and ink.

Her work was recently on view at the juried exhibitions DISCARDED: A recycle art exhibit by Ikouii, Atlanta, "VOICES" by Artlink contemporary art gallery, Fort Wayne, IN, and “Hope - Revolution” at the Stay Home Gallery in Paris, TN. Her recent participatory art installation on the theme of love, titled ‘Rainbow of emotions’ — ‘લાગણીઓ નું મેઘધનુષ’, was featured at the Abhivyakti art festival, 2020. Her work can also be viewed on Instagram: @gallery.lab26