Rudi Jie-A-Fa
“An intersectional couple walks hand-in-hand along a winding cobblestone path. It’s a cheerful day, and they try their best to be happy and enjoy the weather. They make conversation with passing phrases like, “You’d be a good parent!” or, “This park is perfect for taking kids out to play,” or, “Our house is down the street from an elementary school, if we ever have kids one day.” In the case of queer and intersectional couples, having biological children is more than just a few trips to a doctor’s office; it is a combination of legal, medical, and discriminatory challenges that many people have neither the time nor resources to overcome. Having a child is just a wish, rather than a right.”
Rudi Jie-A-Fa, Magical Daydreams of Baby!, 2022. Graphite and colored pencil on paper. 11 x 17 in. Courtesy of the artist. Click image to view detail.
“Heteronormative societies often don’t equate those belonging to the LGBTQ+ community as also being people who may want biological children. For many LGBTQ+ people, having children will remain merely a daydream that haunts them in their everyday lives. Having a child as an intersectional couple is a process that holds many prejudiced and outdated barriers. It is either too expensive for intersectional couples to have a child in the method they desire (for example, insemination), or legally impossible to have a child with the couple’s DNA in the state or country that they reside in. Although some intersectional people may not want children, there are many intersectional people who are limited to just wishing that they had children. The desire to have children can be a deeply human instinct, and any person who has a dream of nurturing and raising a family, should be able to do so without being challenged.
There is also the fact that most legal and medical procedures in westernized countries are biased towards members of the LGBTQ+ community. There are too many instances of medical professionals shaming and rejecting intersectional patients, stripping them of the basic human right to have children or start a family with their own DNA. On top of that, there are discriminatory legal issues that prevent LGBTQ+ people in certain states and countries from even having a child in the first place, due to the policing of reproductive justice for those with intersectional identities.”
Rudi Jie-A-Fa (b. 1994) (she/her) is a Chinese/Afro-Latin American visual artist. Rudi explores her multiracial and intersectional identity by blending Afro-Latina urban art with contemporary Asian anime and manga art. Rudi’s conflicting DNA informs a body of work that mixes the cheerful and the cynical. She accomplishes this by blending cute and colorful character design, with undertones of confusion, chaos, and inner conflict. There is often an aloof or numb look in the faces that Rudi creates. She draws her characters with “Stepford” smiles to communicate a sense of isolation and pain in her characters, who are all androgynous, intersectional, and ethnically diverse. Ultimately, Rudi’s goal as an artist is to depict the silent inner struggle that intersectional individuals are forced to wrestle with in their everyday lives.
Website: https://rudijieafa.wixsite.com/artwork
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rudi.jie.a.fa
To purchase this work, contact the artist.