Meet the artist

Mira Foulkes

My real name is Mira Foulkes and my art brings hope. I go by the moniker MiraNai and I am a digital and traditional artist. What inspires me the most is pop culture—anime, comics, music, movies, video games and the art that derives from pop culture. My goal is to inspire others and become a leader or a source of hope that you can do anything and break barriers, no matter what. I hope to activate engagement with my art to help be a source of representation of the black community. By representing black identities in my work, I hope it creates balance in the media.

For example my piece of the “Superstar” is a young black woman who is seen with bright colored hair, makeup and a colorful background. By using these bright colors, my aim was self expression and joy. Acceptance of dark skin in light playful colors.
The same thing is shown in my self portrait of the “Toon Me” challenge on social media, or my “Meech on Mars’ piece that shows vulnerability but also softness and freshness with the positioning of his body, the light pink background and blurring feature.

Although my target audience is my people - young black creatives in my age group and younger - I also hope to reach others who come from different walks of life, ages, and cultures. I also do this because I just want to have fun and I love what I do. Art keeps me grounded and is what has helped me through tough times. I hope that my art can make others happy too. I hope that it brings hope.