Sophia Zarders can’t remember a time when she wasn’t illustrating.
From creating comics as a child, attending community college art classes as a teenager and spending a summer engulfed in animation at the California State Summer School for the Arts, Zarders lives and breathes art.
Zarders often drew inspiration from Greek mythology, religious iconography and cult films- creating her own original characters.
In 2014, during the first wave of national Black Lives Matter protests, Zarders’ work took on new meaning.
“I think before then, I hadn’t really explored even my own race or gender really in my work,” the artist said. “But after that, it really became clear to me that I had to talk about all the things that were happening in my community and in the U.S. in general.”
Fueled by pop culture, Zarders’ illustrations are an explosion of color often depicting social issues and feminist themes.
In more than one zine, Zarders explores the work of transgender icons, civil rights leaders and other powerful women whose contributions Zarders says are often overlooked.
Zarders’ online shop displays watercolor activist portrait mini prints, which depict prominent leaders such as Angela Davis, Shirley Chisholm and the late environmental activist Berta Caceres.
Power 2 The People postcards illustrated by Zarders feature Marsha P. Johnson standing atop a bright yellow background. A postcard also depicts a collage of diverse people with raised fists titled “May Day 2020.”
Half the proceeds from the postcards go to the Marsha P. Johnson Institute, a nonprofit that protects and defends the human rights of Black transgender people.
As an avid fan of film, one of Zarders’ most recent projects is her zine “Women Directors & Trans Filmmakers Vol. 2.”
“Every single director on all those top 100 lists, they’re always cisgender men,” Zarders said. “So many of them are white, so many of them are from families who are already directors, so I really wanted to make a zine that explored some of those marginalized voices.”
In it, Zarders showcases original illustrations of directors and key scenes from their bodies of work accompanied by a summary of their influence.
Volume one was released approximately two years ago, and overall, about 52 different directors are showcased in the zines.
“Throughout my career, I’ve talked about race, talked about sexuality,” she said. “There was a time where I was really interested in the MeToo movement and kind of highlighting hypocrisy in Hollywood.”
Zarders hopes the zine will help people recognize that some of the films they’ve probably watched were directed by women or produced by trans people.
Readers will recognize directors such as Sofia Coppola, who has directed films like “Lost in Translation” and “Marie Antoinette”, or Jamie Babbit, who has directed episodes of Netflix’s “Russian Doll” and the sitcom “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.”
In other works, Zarders pays homage to human rights leaders such as gay liberation activist Marsha P. Johnson, but also highlights pop culture icons such as Donna Summer and Beyoncé, who have made strides for women in the music industry.
Last summer, the artist also ventured into mural painting when she was commissioned by the Arts Council for Long Beach to paint boarded-up businesses in Cambodia Town.
“It was fun to just talk with the locals because anytime that you do a mural, everyone walking by is going to come talk to you,” Zarders said. “You’re going to hear a lot of good stories.”
The result was the side profile of a woman with long yellow braids over a sky blue background that adorned the boarded-up windows of a Vietnamese restaurant. The words “We’re Open” stand beside the woman, outlined in purple.
“I think a lot of my aesthetics actually do come from film and pop culture,” Zarders said of her color palette inspiration, citing cult classic movies such as “Valley of the Dolls.”
“But there’s also certain colors that I’m really attracted to,” she said. “And I always value vibrancy and no matter what the tone of the pieces, I think that you can still have something that’s really colorful and bold.”
She painted another mural by a nail salon, using the same color palette, only this time depicting a girl with a pink megaphone with the words “Power to the People” emerging from the amplifier comic book-style.
All in all, Zarders has created approximately 20 zines- many of which she has displayed at zine fests around Southern California and almost all deal with race, gender and pop culture.
“[These topics] are just really important to me as a person,” Zarders said. “Activism and social awareness is really important to my work.”
To purchase Zarder’s work, visit her website here. To stay up to date with Zarders, follow her Instagram page here. Copies of her zine “The Feminist Alphabet” can also be found at Flatline Gallery in Long Beach.
