Pam Uzzell: [00:00:00] Do you believe art can change the world? So do I! On this show, we meet artists whose work is doing just that. Welcome to Art Heals All Wounds. I'm your host, Pam Uzzell.
In the last episode, we talked about spaces, those special spaces that shaped who we are and how to mourn and honor them if they disappear due to climate catastrophes, natural disasters in general, [00:01:00] and poor urban planning. I spoke with the filmmaker dream hampton about flooding in Detroit and Belle Isle, and we talked about the devastating fires in Maui.
Since then, the news is full of images of the flooding in Derna, Libya, and the devastating earthquake around Marrakesh in Morocco. I'm worrying that before this episode is published, another disaster will strike. I read in the New York Times about eco anxiety. which they describe as a chronic fear of environmental doom.
Then I tried to think of someone I know who doesn't have this fear. I know I do. Personally, this fear seems kind of like a sane state of mind, or at least realistic. Thinking of all of this, and the fear around disappearing spaces, my mind went to a conversation that I had with an artist whose story feels like a good companion to all of this.
This is a story about creating spaces. I spoke with Amilli Onair a street [00:02:00] artist, whose goal is to add just a touch of the feminine to our public spaces. Okay, maybe more than just a touch. She wants all of us to have a moment where the part of ourselves that is feminine can see that reflected on the street.
So whoever you are out there listening to this, even if you're a big, burly man, take a moment to look inside. And notice the part of you that is feminine. Are you comfortable with that part of you? Would you like to be in more spaces that reflect that? I'm so glad you're listening to this episode of Art Heals All Wounds.
We are talking about belonging in this season. I want to share your stories of belonging on the show. You can go to my website, arthealsallwoundspodcast. com and leave a voicemail sharing your story. Help me get enough of these stories to share in future episodes. Amilli Onair is a street artist who is transforming public spaces with her murals of [00:03:00] flowers and women.
Have you ever heard a woman described as a delicate little flower? Well, Amilli wants to show us that perceiving a flower to be delicate is a misconception. Do you ever walk down the street and notice the flowers pushing up through cracks in the concrete or blooming in the crevices of an asphalt road?
Flowers are incredibly resilient and resourceful parts of nature. To be able to bloom that way is the resilient part of all of us, no matter how we identify. We talked about Amilli's philosophy about street art, and some interesting responses to her work. Having grown up around the world, in many different countries, and surrounded by women artists in her family, Amilli has a vision of how feminine images can transform public spaces.
Can they help people feel welcome in a public space? Will her murals make someone feel safer on certain streets? With so much of the world [00:04:00] around us built for men, how might her work change public spaces in a way that welcomes everyone to connect with a more feminine energy?
Hi, Amilli. Thank you so much for being on Art Heals All Wounds. Can you start by telling us who you are and what you do?
Amilli Onair: Yeah, well, thank you so much for having me on here, Pam. My name is Amilli. I am a muralist and street artist based out of Brooklyn, New York, and I am French American. Art has always been a really, really big part of my life.
My mother's an artist. My grandmothers are both artists. We grew up going to museums all the time and actually funnily enough, my dad's favorite museum to take us to when we were kids is this museum in New York called PS1 and PS1 MoMA and right across the street, there was what they used to call like this Street Art Mecca.
There was this, [00:05:00] um, called four, four points, five points. We used to go there like all the time, like every weekend. And it was an entire warehouse that was graffitied from the inside out, like an entire, like four floors, huge. It was, it was incredible. And we would go there and there would be like rap battles and dance competitions.
All of the art would get covered over and it was kind of this really beautiful community. And we would go all the time and then we would go to the diner that was across the street and we would eat there. And that's where you would see all of the street artists. And it's interesting because none of that exists today.
They actually sold the building a couple years ago and it is now a bunch of condos. So it's. very different times. It's all been, it's in Long Island City, New York. And so it's all been kind of gentrified and all of that stuff. But it's interesting now because my dad, you know, when I became a street artist, he was like, I'm so confused.
And then my grandmother was like, what are you talking about? You did this, like you've done this to her [00:06:00] forever. And I was painting murals in college and I started making street art kind of during COVID.
Pam Uzzell: Interesting. You know, I've seen pictures of your art. And I love it. It's so incredible, and it changes the face of wherever you're painting.
So talk a little bit about the type of work that you do.
Amilli Onair: Yeah, so I tell, it's so funny when I meet people, they're like, So what do you paint? And I'm like, Woman and flowers. That's about it. Because, you know, sometimes you tell people I'm an artist and then they start asking you, can you paint my dog? And I'm like, I can't do that.
I will not do that. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but I, it's just kind of my, my thing. I paint women and flowers. I'm kind of obsessed with the idea of blooming. The idea that flowers have been given as like a female representative to be so delicate, but actually they're so resilient. They can, [00:07:00] you know, live almost anywhere.
They grow underwater. They grow in really desert areas. They grow on the sidewalk. We think they're weeds, you know, but they can't, you know, they can't go away. They'll come back. And they have this way of persisting and growing in these places that, you know, you wouldn't really think of. And I think that they tell a really beautiful story in combination with woman, but not in a way that people have said to us that, oh, we're such a delicate, dainty flower.
And I also think that there is kind of this beautiful symbolism of how much space a woman can take up. And I like to paint women with these, you know, really beautiful crowns of flowers that are kind of limitless. And the idea is that, you know, When you look at a woman, we're, we're told like, Oh, you know, you, you should be so small and you should be so quiet and beautiful to look at, but in reality, you know, how incredibly beautiful would it be to take up so much space to bloom kind of infinitely and always be [00:08:00] evolving.
So all of my work is kind of thinking about that in different spaces. And I really like painting large. I actually have a harder time painting small than, than large. And I think that I'm so enamored by the fact of painting something that's bigger than me, because people are always like, Oh, you're like five- two, you know, you didn't do that.
I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, why would you think that, you know, I can't climb on ladders or, you know, you know, use all these things and kind of making something that is so encompassing that changes a whole space that makes other women feel like it's their space, I think, is a very interesting place to be.
It's a really interesting thing to watch other people encounter.
Pam Uzzell: Well, you said you have both your mother and both your grandmothers are artists. And I'm wondering, how did this idea of taking up space, is it influenced at all by the fact [00:09:00] that you've been around these other women artists in your life, or something like that.
How, how did this become such a thought for you? And I also want to go back to also the metaphor blooming and talk about that a little bit more. But for now, I'm really curious about the idea of taking up space.
Amilli Onair: Yeah, absolutely. So I have a grandmother who's a photographer, and then a mom who is in, studied to be an architect, and then is an incredible painter, and my grandmother on my dad's side, who I'm very close with, she is a sculptor, and she made ginormous building size sculptures and she's the shortest, tiniest little woman that you have ever seen.
I've always been fascinated by that, that she did that. I have seen her make pretty big sculptures, but I wasn't born around the time that she was doing like all these like really ginormous sculptures. And it's, it's kind of amazing to watch, like see pictures cause [00:10:00] it's all documented. See pictures of her like on these really tall ladders making these huge sculptures.
And I, you know, looking back now, I'm like, Oh. That's me. I'm like, oh, I totally get you. And so I, we like to say that like large scale things were kind of in our genes. Like we, we just kind of want to take up that much space. Um, and I think it's interesting then when I think about my mom who wanted to be an architect and create spaces physically and wanting to, you know, reorganize them and rethink them.
And she, similarly to my grandmother, came across a bunch of, you know, moments that were like, Oh, you know, but you're, you're a woman, you know? And like, there weren't a lot of female architects at the time, or, you know, all the cabinets that she was applying to, there were, there was like a lot of men. She felt like there was like a really big barrier for her.
My grandmother also felt that way. And I think that there's something really interesting about being able to reclaim your own space, wanting to build it from anew, [00:11:00] something that like people haven't imagined. My stepmom is also an interior designer and creates amazingly beautiful spaces. And I think that there's something really powerful about all those different kinds of art that are, interestingly, trying to think about a space differently and think maybe from a woman's perspective.
And when you think about so much of the world that we live in has been, you know, designed by men and in the beginning, unknowingly for men. And, you know, when you think about like the, you know, the seatbelt is made for a man, you know, things that are like, I use that, you know, and then you think about, okay, like, what about
if you were to like take it all apart, like, okay, what about, you know, the way that our bathrooms are designed, you know, what about the way that the streets or their shoes and then our healthcare, and then you like take it all down and you're like, okay, well how do we rebuild that? How can we imagine or start from this place that we're at and see where we can go with [00:12:00] what we have?
Um, and I think somewhere, A lot of the women in my life have been doing that, maybe not localizing it as such, but I think when I look at it, I see it that way. And I think that when I was, you know, kind of passing down of like, Oh, well, what are you going to do as an artist? I was like, paint everything, paint it all.
And I think, I don't know, it's fascinating to me. Possibilities are really endless.
Pam Uzzell: Right.
Well, I've looked at pictures of your murals many different places. Different countries, and I love that statement, paint everything. I'm wondering how these blooms that you're painting, how does it alter the space that you're working in, if it's a street, and if it's on a building, how-- I almost feel like a mural can shift the energy of a place.
I'm wondering though, like, [00:13:00] what your intention is when you go in to paint in a space.
Amilli Onair: Yeah, I want to start with the streets because I think that's a very interesting place to have started in as an artist myself and to paint in consciously. When I think about painting on the streets, I think about how many people don't feel safe on the streets.
So many of us. It's, I would say, like a big majority of our population, unfortunately. It's, you know, when you look at, you know, queer people don't feel safe in the streets, women don't feel safe in the streets, people of color don't feel safe in the streets, trans and non binary people don't feel safe in the streets.
And so, for me, it was to, you know, kind of look at the things around me. And I am always evolving. So I want to preface that. And for me, I was, you know, when I start making an art piece, it's, if I were walking in the streets right now, what would I look at and be like, Oh, wow, this is like, this is like a safe space.
Someone's like walk home every day, every morning, whether it's early in the morning or at night, you know, like what [00:14:00] during the day. And they're like, Oh yes. I like, yeah, I remember the, you know, this big, bright, beautiful, colorful mural. And like, you know, that just. It's made me feel safe and colors make me feel safe.
The things that I paint are things that I attest to make me feel safe. And so I hope that somewhere along the way, you know, it suits someone else. It like talks to someone else that way. I unfortunately didn't study engineering of buildings or whatever, so I can't physically redo the pavement, you know, but I was like, okay, what can I do if I can't do that?
Well, I'm going to add art. I'm going to have something else go over it.
Pam Uzzell: You also have this mural. This big, colorful painting of a uterus. And I'd love to know the story behind that.
Amilli Onair: So I'd made that design at a time where I was in and out of seeing a lot of doctors. I suffer from interstitial cystitis, which, well, [00:15:00] now I know that's what it is, but it's basically like you think you have UTIs all the time.
Um, and then you take UTI medications and then you get yeast infections. And it's just like all of this stuff that I feel like not a lot of people talk about very openly, and it's a huge struggle for a lot of women. And so you'll go see a bunch of doctors and they just don't have any answers for you.
And I had this doctor, you know, he's like in the middle of this examination and he just looks at me and he's like, well, you've reached the limits of medicine. And I was like, what does that even mean? You know, and it's just infuriating moment and realizing that, you know, my body hasn't been studied enough for something to just heal my pain, you know?
And so this idea that women are walking around with all this pain and it's being like, kind of, you know, passing over people's heads and they're not like diagnosing it correctly and all this stuff and you know when I was faced with like a very small portion of it because eventually, you know I got some of the help that I needed it just it was it just left me so angry [00:16:00] and so I decided to make this uterus to soothe myself a little bit.
And then eventually it soothes me in more than one way. I think that art has a really incredible way of doing that because it's the conscious and the subconscious working at the same time. Um, and so it healed a lot of other things in relationship to my relationship with my mom, which I think, you know, the brain, we haven't studied it enough.
I think it is connected to our body somehow. And, you know, the way that we feel pain and the places that we feel pain and the reasons why we have them placed that way. So I made this design and then I was lucky enough to have sent it to someone that was kind of like, I love this and I'm going to find a place for this to be on a building.
So we were trying to figure it out and then Roe V. Wade was overturned. And then we were like, we have to put it up. We have to find somewhere to put this. And so within the weekend of it being overturned, we painted it.
Pam Uzzell: Wow. Yeah, that's amazing. It's an [00:17:00] amazing image. And what you're saying about these experience going to different doctors and them saying that you reach the limits of what'd they say, of medicine,
or are you,
Amilli Onair: yeah, you've reached the limits of medicine.
Pam Uzzell: But
your point is so valid that it is revealing the limitations of medicine in that male bodies are the norm. And female bodies are just something that should respond to the same treatments that male bodies do. And it's so interesting. Also, I think you brought up earlier, and this kind of reiterates it, the brushing aside of women's pain.
And I know that. many BIPOC people have that same experience.
Amilli Onair: Absolutely.
Pam Uzzell: Yeah. It's fascinating. I am curious about one thing you said about your relationship with your mom. I'm wondering [00:18:00] if there's anything you want to say in terms of how that's influenced your life or what was going on there.
Amilli Onair: Yeah,
absolutely.
So I grew up with a mom that is bipolar and schizophrenic you know, today she's doing really well. She's getting a lot of help. And so it's, it's really beautiful to watch her kind of fall into herself and accept where that will like kind of take her. I think it's influenced so much of my work in one part because like she is an artist and because I watched her paint these incredible paintings my whole life.
I mean, she's probably one of the most talented people that I know. And she introduced me to so much of what I have today. So I have so much thanks for that. And at the same time, I have so much pain from a childhood of growing up with someone that was struggling so much. And so the idea of blooming and the idea of being able to bloom, even in really dark places is linked to the fact that I have been in [00:19:00] really dark places and kind of working through all of those things and kind of
understanding that a lot of things can coexist. I've been learning about how, you know, happiness is like only one emotion. And, you know, everybody's always like, Oh, you have to be happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy. You can actually be happy and a lot of other things at the same time. And when I start painting all of my flowers, I'm like, okay, what am I feeling in so many flowers, you know, have symbolisms and they can kind of go together and you can feel a lot of beauty and feel a lot of pain at the same time.
And I think that growing up with my mom and my relationship with my mom is in a lot of ways that kind of balance where she is a really incredible person and at the same time rectifying the things that are hard from the past and, you know, still could be hard in the future. And also being thankful for all the things that she's given me as, as an artist.
Pam Uzzell: That's a really great [00:20:00] thing that you just said about the coexistence of many emotions at one time and the the notion of happiness . I'm just thinking about right now like am I happy and then I'm thinking about all the other things that I also am feeling.
Amilli Onair: That you also are.
Pam Uzzell: Yes.
Amilli Onair: Yeah.
Pam Uzzell: I want to go back again to this idea of how street art can alter a place and leave it with a certain feeling and I don't want to use a, the word that's popping into my head is vibe, but I guess that is, I guess that's as good a word as any. It's interesting. My, one of my daughters went to a school that had a mural on it, a middle school, and I can't remember if that there was a demand that like that mural had to be taken down.
And it was an amazing mural, but it was all about war and all these sorts of [00:21:00] things. And it was like, okay. There's a place for that, but maybe the wall of the middle school is not the place for that.
Amilli Onair: Not the place. Yeah.
Pam Uzzell: And I'm just going back to this idea around space and feminine space. And I think one thing your work is addressing is how there's been such a limited interpretation of what feminism is.
You know, feminism is not anti male or anti men because we do have such a mixture of each of us. And what's really beautiful is to see all the different genders that can exist and all of them have a mixture of both. Masculine, feminine, and feminism is not about being anti anyone. It is about expanding that space [00:22:00] for not only women, but the feminine.
I do love to imagine your work actually manifesting as these spaces for the feminine.
Amilli Onair: I love that you put it into that context because I think it's so true. There's so many things that I want to say about all of that. I want to address street art first. The kind of the story that you're telling about the mural kind of being taken down and stuff
at your daughter's school. I think street art is so interesting because it is public and so people have the right to respond to it in real time and people always ask me and they're like, oh well what if you put something out in the streets and then somebody like graffitis all over it and I'm like The minute that I finished making something, it no longer belongs to me.
It no longer belongs to me. It belongs to the public. It belongs to the streets [00:23:00] and whatever happens there happens. And what I think was so beautiful about it is that literally if you respond to it, it's the way that it's a commentary on society in itself. I had all these pieces in San Francisco that for some reason, all of my, you know, friends that were painting art that was very masculine were getting like graffitied all over.
And then they would leave mine. Then they wouldn't touch mine. And so a lot of the pieces that I put up, like, weren't touched at all for like, uh, you know, a whole year. And then when people were putting stuff on it, they were drawing like little penises on them. You know, like this, it was like somebody passed and like, had, you know, taken a pencil and like drawn, drawn little penises.
Um, and it, and it happened on like a couple of them. And I thought that was so interesting. I was like, what does that mean about how people feel about a very feminine piece in the street? You know, how, how are [00:24:00] people interpreting that? How do people want to react to that? And do people feel threatened by that?
Is that why, you know, somebody felt the need to put something that's so heavily masculine, like on top of something that's so feminine. And I think that I'm fascinated with the way that something lives in a community more than I am with the preciousness of a piece. I think what you said is so true when it comes to feminine and masculine energies, kind of, being intertwined and understanding that there, again, is a full scale of how people feel feminine or masculine, you know, at different times and what that means and how we shouldn't have so much fear around what we've defined to be just two genders.
And I think that being able to have spaces that are feminine for people to see how they feel. And I always am interested in the people who buy my work because for a [00:25:00] really long time, it wasn't women who were buying my work. It was a lot of dads. And I thought that was so interesting because it was a lot of dads that had daughters, young daughters.
I thought that was so interesting. I was like, Oh wow, like how does this change their perspective? And then there would be women who would reach out to me. And they would be like, Oh, you know, I really want one of your pieces and in my home with my partner, but he doesn't want a woman's face. I don't think he, he would like a woman's face in our apartment because it would be too feminine.
And just the understanding of like how people then want something that is outside in the streets and then want it in their homes. And for what reasons, and kind of then seeing their relationship to femininity and, you know, how some people are very shy. Some people are like, oh, this is, this is not for me.
And I think that's pretty interesting.
Pam Uzzell: The little
penises drawn on it are fascinating. [00:26:00]
Amilli Onair: Isn't that incredible as a commentary?
Pam Uzzell: It's incredible for a couple reasons. First of all, the fact that they were little penises, I could, I could think about that and analyze that all day. But also I just feel like it's such a sad reality that so many children who are assigned male at birth just have such a fear
of being able to express or accept any feminine part of themselves. And that that is such a push from society, you know, and it is, it's loosening up now. And I am thrilled to see some changes in toys and attitudes. But I also feel like there is always, always in culture there is a reactive force. Which are these little penises that are just like, Oh no, you don't, you're not going to feminize this space.
Amilli Onair: Yeah, [00:27:00] absolutely. And it's a very telling point of like, you know, what a microaggression could be. It's not like they like went over it and they like, you know, put, they were just like, you can't be here. It was like, just so you know, just so you know, like we need to still like a little bit of a masculine touch here and.
I just thought that was so fascinating. It happened on like four or five murals. It wasn't just one, you know, like every time I come back to San Francisco, I go check on the murals and stuff. Always they're like, you know, there's somebody that'll like to tag their name or something, you know, that's, I mean, that's just like having it in the streets, but there's always just like a little bit of a masculine touch on it.
That's why I think that making art in the streets is so fascinating because it's so instinctual. Like that was their first instinct. When they saw that, they were like, that needs a small penis. You know what I mean? It just says so much about our society. And I am so, like you said, so interested and so thankful that our society, I mean, it's not there yet, but it's getting places.
And I'm so interested to [00:28:00] see how children grow from that and what comes out of it. And as that happens, and I continue making work, what will, you know, what will people be putting on them next? Or how will that evolve? Or what conversations will kind of continue from that? I think it's, it's going to be very, very interesting.
Pam Uzzell: I
feel like you could teach a whole class around the street art and the responses.
Amilli Onair: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Pam Uzzell: Yeah. I am so happy that we met. And that I discovered your work and that you are doing such amazing stuff. It's really interesting to think about. Where can people find out more about you?
Amilli Onair: First, thank you so much for having me. If people want to find me, they can find me on Instagram. My artist name is Amilli Onair. So it's at A-M-I-double [00:29:00] L-I-O-N-A-I-R.
Pam Uzzell: And I love that because it's a millionaire. So...
Amilli Onair: Yes.
Pam Uzzell: And do you have a website that people can go to?
Amilli Onair: Absolutely. Yeah. It's amillionair.art.
Pam Uzzell: We
will put all that info in the show notes and thank you so much. It just was so fun to talk to you and I do really love
your work.
Amilli Onair: Thank you so much. Thank you. Your podcast is amazing and your work is amazing. So thank you for having spaces like this.
You're listening to Art Heals All Wounds.[00:30:00]
Thank you so much to Amilli Onair for coming on the show to talk about her street art. I really hope that you'll go to her Instagram and look at her work. I love it so much. I have a fantasy of having her work flowing on all four exterior walls of my house.
I'll put all of her info in the show notes so that you can find out more about her. Please, please, please leave me a voicemail of your stories of belonging. What makes you feel safe and welcome? Do you have an experience where something made you feel seen and connected? A special song, a movie, a theater experience?
Tell me about it. Help me get enough of these voicemails to use for future episodes. You can find the voicemail link on my website, arthealsallwoundspodcast.com. While you're at my website, if you'd like to leave me a small donation, you can click on the buy me a coffee link and leave me a little something.
[00:31:00] Every bit helps me to continue making this podcast. The music you've heard in this podcast is by Ketsa and Lobo Loco. This podcast was edited by Iva Hristova. As always, this show was recorded using Squadcast.FM. Art Heals All Wounds comes to you from Oakland, California, on unceded territory of the Chochenyo Ohlone people.