Percival x RTiiiKA
A LIMITED EDITION COLLECTION TO CELEBRATE PRIDE MONTH.
To celebrate Pride Month and for our next Artist Series launch, we’ve collaborated with Bristol based artist RTiiiKA (”aah-teeka”) AKA Rosa ter Kuile, to launch two Limited Edition t-shirt styles designed to celebrate “the diverse and intersectional LGBTQ+ experience”.
All proceeds from the collection will be donated to the Albert Kennedy Trust. AKT supports LGBTQ+ young people aged 16-25 in the UK who are facing or experiencing homelessness or living in a hostile environment. They support young people into safe homes and employment, education or training, in a welcoming and open environment that celebrates lgbtq+ identities. You can find out more about how to support or work with AKT here.
Rosa, how would you describe your work to someone who hasn’t seen it before.
My work focuses on expression, connection and the body by using a very minimal visual language. Think: angular lines, voluptuous curves and sassy heeled boots.
Pleasure, eroticism, touch and play are themes I like to work with. Artists like Keith Haring, Shantell Martin’s rhythmic line work and Jeffrey Cheung have helped me to create the way I do.
Tell us more about your background.
I’m a Dutch/British artist working across illustration, graphic arts and street art.
As a self-taught artist, working in creative collectives has been important to develop. In 2019 I started the Bristol Mural Collective, an all-skill level women-led group that hosts monthly paint jams for anyone to join. I’ve also learnt a lot from being part of Rising Arts Agency, a community of young creatives in the South West that is actively working to make the arts sector more inclusive and accessible.
Tell us more about the genderless figure line drawings featured in a lot of your work.
I developed my line-based abstraction of the human body as a way to blur the gender binary, and make it playfully ambiguous.
The way I draw is open to interpretation, as if the characters could be anyone and no-one at the same time. The details of a person are less important to me than how someone stands, moves, and relates to others.
How did you develop the repeated genderless figure concept for this t-shirt collection to celebrate Pride month.
I was interested to find a way to show the diverse and intersectional LGBTQ+ experience. The final piece is a complex tapestry made up of hand-holding, dancing, bodies touching, moments of pleasure. The colourful windows are a nod to the intersectional pride flag colours, and also a way to zoom in to specific stories. The final result is a kind of chaotic celebration.
What does Pride mean to you?
Pride means a lot of things – its a recognition of the varied LGBTQ+ experience, a mark of queer strength and suffering and a continuing call to see the queer experience through an intersectional lens.
Pride has also become massively corporatised, and I’m cautious about multinationals pinkwashing their brands with a splash of the rainbow every June. For me, pride lives in DIY spaces and that’s what I want to support.
Artistically speaking, an important part of being queer for me is about bending norms and expectations, and seeing joy as a form of resistance. So my art draws from this tradition.
You’re in California at the moment, how will you be celebrating Pride in the US and what are you up to next?
I’m in the Bay Area at the moment, so will definitely want to experience the different events planned this month. And as for what’s next: I’m planning on painting murals, meeting creatives here and just enjoying the sunshine tbh!
SHOP PERCIVAL x RTiiiKA
All proceeds will be donated to akt. akt supports lgbtq+ young people aged 16-25 in the UK who are facing or experiencing homelessness or living in a hostile environment. Reg charity number: 1093815