Image description: Portrait image of Black woman, smiling slightly with light brown skin, shoulder length black curly hair. She is in a park with green grass and autum leaves in the trees located in the distance behind her. She is wearing a pink top with medium sized black polka dots. She is wearing a clay pin in the image of a girl’s face.
Kierston E. Ghaznavi
She/Her
Mixed Media Artist/Illustrator/Designer
Working primarily with ink pen, markers and acrylic paints, Kierston Ghaznavi uses her lifelong love of drawing and Graphic Design background to add movement and dimension to the characters she creates, making detailed dolls that mirror her environment.
Her love for paper dolls started when she was young. As the oldest sibling of four, she would facilitate play with her younger siblings, mostly to keep the peace. Making up stories or drawing paper dolls to play with every day.
After college, she began to experiment with her personal art style. Always drawing characters with their own stories, reflecting her community. Later she began to experiment with articulation to bring elements of dimension to her flat illustrations.
Kierston Ghaznavi is a traditional and digital illustrator and artist who lives and works in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her vibrantly colored articulated paper and large scale wooden dolls depict the beauty and unique personalities of black women today as well as black pop culture, afro centric themes, natural hair, affirmations of self-love, mental health and plus size body appreciation.
Kierston earned her BFA in Graphic Design in May of 2012 from the Peck School of the Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Kierston’s work has been in numerous exhibitions in Southeastern Wisconsin since 2015. Including the 2022 Wisconsin Trienniel at the MMoCA, “Represent” exhibition at the Racine Art Museum, Her first solo exhibition, “Without a Stitch” in 2020 and the “This is America” Exhibition both at 5 Points Art Gallery, the 2018 30x30x30 Exhibition at Var Gallery in Milwaukee and most recently: “Plastic Off the Sofa”, Joint exhibition at 5 Points Art Gallery in 2023.