Working mostly with Copic markers, digital drawings and occasional oil paints, Kai Murphy has created commissioned artwork for Duluth Superior Pride, Trans Northland, the H.O.T.D.I.S.H. Militia and more. Murphy started their practice making fan art in online communities, and has since branched out from there. Readers can view their artwork and learn more in the interview, below:

When did you start making art or how would you describe when you first started getting into art?

I was always doodling from a young age, but Neopets was the first time I started getting really serious about art. I wanted to make comics for the Neopian Times, but I unfortunately never finished any largely due to my then-undiagnosed ADHD. I did meet some of my lifelong best friends on that site because we all used to pretend our Neopets were in punk bands. We’d upload drawings of them playing the guitar and then put a Linkin Park song in the background like “look, they’re singing this!”

How would you describe the communities you exist within now as an artist?

I definitely have a lot of artsy friends I like to collaborate with, but we’re pretty scattered. I like combining talents with friends who operate in different mediums. My spouse does circuit bending on cathode-ray tube TVs, for instance, and we’ve been throwing around the idea of them “glitching” some of my drawings.

Are there any projects you’ve completed recently (or in the past) that you’re particularly proud of?

Anyone who knows me well knows that I’ve been obsessed with Skinny Puppy since I was like 15. I drew the singer, Ogre, for his birthday last year. It got a good amount of accolades from other fans online, which felt pretty good! Fast forward to this year, he was tabling at a con in Chicago and I brought a print of the drawing to give as a present. He was immediately like, “I recognize this! You drew that?” and then wrote in an autograph that my art was “sublime.” I think of that whenever I need a pick-me-up.

What are you working on right now?

I always have 500 unfinished drawings I work on simultaneously, but right now I’m giving special attention to a short horror comic I’m making. I’d like to shift to doing more comics in the future. I love storytelling as much as I do drawing, so I figured it’s a good medium for combining two of my passions.

How did you get involved with H.O.T.D.I.S.H. and creating coloring pages for that organization?

My spouse was a former board member on Trans Northland, and they asked me to make coloring pages for a Trans Day of Remembrance event they were putting on. Erin O’Daniel, one of the main organizers at H.O.T.D.I.S.H., saw the pages and approached me to make some more for a bowling fundraiser they were doing. Erin really pushed diversity in my art because she wanted everyone to feel represented, and that encouraged me to experiment with drawing different body types and facial features. I had a lot of fun making them.

Can you share about your artwork that was featured on the cover of the Duluth-Superior Pride Zine?

Oh I really liked how that one turned out! I was incredibly flattered when I got asked to be on the cover. The colors turned out great on print. As for the picture itself: I have a tendency to disassociate when I’m under a large amount of stress. I’ll go numb and feel like I’m in a dream. It’s not the best coping skill at all, but it gives me a temporary sense of comfort. I wanted to capture that by drawing a girl sleeping in TV static, because it feels close to the hazy, foggy sense of being not really there. I tried to use the liquify effect to make a sinister-looking face in the static, and you can kinda see it if you squint, but I couldn’t get it to a place I wanted it to be before the deadline. Such is life!

What subjects and themes tend to appear in your artwork the most?

Most of the time I try to draw to invoke a vague sense of unease. I’m a psychology nerd, so I like seeing people draw their own interpretations from my art. But my own anxieties leak out from time to time. Fear of death, fear of parenting, fear of eating some foods, honestly. A motif I tend toward is anime girls with monsters next to them. I thought […] it might be me subconsciously representing a threat or a loss of innocence, but honestly, I think they’re just two things that I like to draw.

Is there anything else that you’d like for others to know about your art and artistic practice?

I’m prone to self comparison, and I used to get down on myself whenever I saw someone who drew better than me. Many times, it was enough for me to avoid drawing altogether. But somewhere down the line, I stopped viewing it as a competition that I had to be the best at, and started appreciating other people’s art for what it was and tried to learn from them. I think that’s when I started seeing huge leaps in my quality and I started to feel confident in what I was putting out. So at the risk of being corny, I wanted to pass that along, because I see that attitude echoed with a lot of other artists. It gets easier and more fun when you remember it’s a passion instead of a compulsion.

To reach out to Kai for commissions or view more of their art, visit @crappykimchi on Instagram.