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Meet The French Illustrator Who Is All About Sisterhood And #BlackGirlMagic

Welcome to Maison Nicholle Kobi

Human Interest
Lydia Anglin
Jul. 18, 2018 10:42AM EST

The works of Nicholle Kobi have been reposted and being saved in our phones as lockscreens, phone backgrounds, and inspiration for years. And for good reason. In just one scroll through her Instagram feed, you are instantly met with feel-good vibes: seeing images that proudly feature natural hair, working women, friendship, and black love.

The world should take note.

Originally from Normandy, France, the now NYC-based artist has received wide acclaim for her celebration of the "black woman without cliche." Recently, Nicholle chatted with xoNecole to talk about the importance of portraying black woman in a multilayered multifaceted light, her upcoming art exhibit series, as well as the message behind her artwork.

"The message in my artwork is to show my sisters how powerful we are when we stay together, when we work together, when we support and love ourselves," she said. "I really want to show the beauty of black women and how strong we are… I want more unity and love for ourselves."

Artist, Nicholle Kobi

Before building Maison Nicholle Kobi, the brand we have come to love and respect, Nicholle was discouraged from tailoring her artwork to the black female experience and ultimately left art school for the private sector. After spending 10 years working in insurance, while on maternity leave, she began to question what truly brought her happiness. "I remembered drawing is the thing that gives me peace… so I decided to draw. I was drawing 10 illustrations a day and started to post all of my artwork on social media."

"I remembered drawing is the thing that gives me peace."

With time, Nicholle set her sights on flipping the narrative about how society thinks about the black woman. "I was looking for images of real life black women without any cliche, not images that degraded us, and it was not very easy. I wanted to see more modern images of me and my friends, my sisters. So, I decided to stop complaining and do it myself."

Rejecting negative media portrayals, she has turned her artwork into a powerful platform for self-love and sisterhood.

"In my artwork, I want to humanize my sisters… For me, it's very important for all [of the] African diaspora to recognize themselves in my artwork. Every black woman must be able to see herself or her future in my images. We are not what people say we are. We are clever, strong, beautiful, powerful. Nothing can stop us from being who we want to be: mothers, entrepreneurs, doctors, [or even the] president."

"Every black woman must be able to see herself or her future in my images."

Her work has brought together so many women of different backgrounds, from the Caribbean to the Americas, and she hopes that her work will continue to create space to discuss, explore, and unite. With these themes in mind, Nicholle is currently headlining her 'Parisian Instant' 2018 Art Series Exhibit with 30+ stops spanning the world including Brazil, the United States, Europe, and Africa, bringing her artwork and message to the masses.

"This tour was a crazy idea I had two years ago, going out there and meeting all these women who support and love my artwork, but the learning goes both ways. This year, we added more cities in the US because I love to learn from black America and the demand was very important too. "

USA

San Francisco: July 25

Los Angeles: July 28

Nashville: August 27

Charlotte: August 29

Chicago: September 26

Boston: November 27

Detroit: November 29

Washington, DC: December 1

New York, NY ( Brooklyn): December 8

International

Durban: August 8

Cape Town: August 11

Johannesburg: August 15

London: September 8

Paris: September 15

Find more information regarding her art series tour here.

Nicholle is also excited to announce that she has partnered with Hallmark to release a new collection of cards celebrating black mothers, black lovers, and black sisterhood! They will be released in the near future and she hopes that you love them as much as she does.

More than anything, Nicholle wants to showcase the real beauty of black women across the globe and reminds us to lift up our fellow sisters and to be proud of who we truly are. "Because black women come in all shapes and all shades. Because I believe in my people."

Artist, Nicholle Kobi, at her 'Parisian Instant' 2018 Art Series Exhibit

Want to learn more about Nicholle Kobi? Find her work on Instagram @nichollekobi and at: https://nichollekobi.com/. Click through the gallery below to browse some of our favorite Nicholle Kobi works:

1.

Lydia Anglin

Lydia is a recent Ivy League graduate who is passionate about using her voice to enact change in minority and female communities. Dubbed the "Intern Queen," she has worked 8+ internships in diverse industries, including Wall Street firms and the Obama White House, and is now bringing her career and lifestyle tips to you! Meet Lydia on Instagram @queen_of_anglin and Twitter @its_lit_dia.

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The Destructive Power Of 'Purity' Culture

When I was ten, my Sunday school teacher put on a brief performance in class that included some of the boys standing in front of the classroom while she stood in front of them holding a heart shaped box of chocolate. One by one, she tells each boy to come and bite a piece of candy and then place the remainder back into the box. After the last boy, she gave the box of now mangled chocolate over to the other Sunday school teacher — who happened to be her real husband — who made a comically puzzled face. She told us that the lesson to be gleaned from this was that if you give your heart away to too many people, once you find “the one,” that your heart would be too damaged. The lesson wasn’t explicitly about sex but the implication was clearly present.

That memory came back to me after a flier went viral last week, advertising an abstinence event titled The Close Your Legs Tour with the specific target demo of teen girls came across my Twitter timeline. The event was met with derision online. Writer, artist, and professor Ashon Crawley said: “We have to refuse shame. it is not yours to hold. legs open or not.” Writer and theologian Candice Marie Benbow said on her Twitter: “Any event where 12-17-year-old girls are being told to ‘keep their legs closed’ is a space where purity culture is being reinforced.”

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I grew up in an explicitly evangelical house and church, where I was taught virginity was the best gift a girl can hold on to until she got married. I fortunately never wore a purity ring or had a ceremony where I promised my father I wouldn’t have pre-marital sex. I certainly never even thought of having my hymen examined and the certificate handed over to my father on my wedding day as “proof” that I kept my promise. But the culture was always present. A few years after that chocolate-flavored indoctrination, I was introduced to the fabled car anecdote. “Boys don’t like girls who have been test-driven,” as it goes.

And I believed it for a long time. That to be loved and to be desired by men, it was only right for me to deny myself my own basic human desires, in the hopes of one day meeting a man that would fill all of my fantasies — romantically and sexually. Even if it meant denying my queerness, or even if it meant ignoring how being the only Black and fat girl in a predominantly white Christian space often had me watch all the white girls have their first boyfriends while I didn’t. Something they don’t tell you about purity culture – and that it took me years to learn and unlearn myself – is that there are bodies that are deemed inherently sinful and vulgar. That purity is about the desire to see girls and women shrink themselves, make themselves meek for men.

Purity culture isn’t unlike rape culture which tells young girls in so many ways that their worth can only be found through their bodies. Whether it be through promiscuity or chastity, young girls are instructed on what to do with their bodies before they’ve had time to figure themselves out, separate from a patriarchal lens. That their needs are secondary to that of the men and boys in their lives.

It took me a while —after leaving the church and unlearning the toxic ideals around purity culture rooted in anti-Blackness, fatphobia, heteropatriarchy, and queerphobia — to embrace my body, my sexuality, and my queerness as something that was not only not sinful or dirty, but actually in line with the vision God has over my life. Our bodies don't stop being our temples depending on who we do or who we don’t let in, and our worth isn’t dependent on the width of our legs at any given point.

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Featured image by Getty Images

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