TK (they/them) is a curious, often-distracted, self-taught artist with main works in digital illustration and printmaking. TK has worked with organizations and campaigns nationally to illustrate tender, powerful, and joyful moments, while envisioning a better future that works for us all. TK loves storytelling and often thinks about how stories are told and kept. Beyond illustration work, TK is exploring Vietnamese folk art and folklore to connect to their ancestral knowledge, spirituality, and queerness.
Can you imagine it when we win?
Think 10 years in the future: how will life be better for our communities when we have organized and won the things we need to not just survive, but to thrive?
What do we need to get there?
All We Have is Each Other
12” x 16”, Digital Print
Invest in Us
11” x 17”, Digital Print
Burn the Cistem
12” x 16”, Digital Print
TK dreams of the destruction of the (cis)tem, of reimagining what our future could look like, and of our rebirth. Our queer communities deserve safety. Our queer communities deserve joy and abundance. Our queer communities deserve liberation.
Colonialism couldn’t stop expansive genders.
22”x22”, Silkscreen on cotton hanky
Colonialism couldn’t stop expansive genders.
Using traditional Vietnamese motifs, TK uses folk art to talk about queerness as a Southeast Asian person. TK draws on the popular mythology of Vietnamese people being descendents of a Dragon and a Mountain Fairy, using images of snakes and bats to depict liminal space and the non-binary nature of all things. In Southeast Asian folklore, snakes and bats are seen as an important part of the ecosystem; they are spiritual symbols of transformation, as they can take many different forms in mythology, like dragons, lizards, fairies, or ogres. While snakes can be seen as the symbol for chaos, they are also seen as the protector and nurturer. Bats are also seen to be the symbol of safety, happiness, and abundance.