Constructing Narratives with Paper Dolls, Illustrations and Mixed Media

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Kierston Ghaznavi is a multimedia artist and illustrator known for drawing vibrant characters who carry empowering narratives. Over the years her practice has encompassed pen and ink drawings, wooden dolls, accessories like pins and earrings, mixed media and more. Ghaznavi celebrates the beauty and individuality of Black women in her work, incorporating themes of Black pop culture, self-love, plus size bodies, and Afro-centric stories.

Growing up in Milwaukee, Kierston Ghaznavi found her love for pen and paper at a young age. “I would draw on my homework and get in trouble,” she recalls. “It was my way to release.”

As a child, Ghaznavi developed a fascination with paper dolls, which became a vehicle for her to bring original characters to life using movement and dimension. “I was the oldest of four, and I would use the dolls to play with my sisters,” she continues.

Self-Love and Boldness

Ghaznavi has continued to make paper dolls into adulthood, and in 2012 she graduated from UW-Milwaukee with a degree in graphic design. Using cardstock, pen and markers, she draws and colors her characters, cuts them out and assembles them. While creating each doll, Ghaznavi often depicts them carrying a sense of self-love and boldness, and she hopes that folks can see themselves in her characters. 

“People who look like my dolls maybe don’t see themselves represented in a positive light all the time,” she explains.

Ghaznavi often names her characters, sometimes inspired by people she knows in real life. Her favorite compliment is when someone tells her that one of her dolls looks like them. “I want people to see this beautiful version of themselves that’s very confident and doesn’t care what people think. I’m 43 and I still struggle with that, so in my more recent work I’ve been trying to reverse that and say “Kierston, this is you” and see myself in this.”

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Turning Point

Ghaznavi has participated in dozens of group art exhibitions, and in 2020 she had her first solo art show “Without A Stitch” at 5 Points Art Gallery + Studios. This became a turning point for Ghaznavi as she challenged herself to make large scale dolls out of plywood, where she would cut them out first and paint second.

“It was really interesting to approach the dolls and the proportions I wanted to make in a different way,” she remembers.

With her drawn “No Sleep” series, Ghaznavi sketches women in different situations of exhaustion, inspired by her own experience working third shift at her job. Ghaznavi’s “Hair Obsessed” series reflects the beauty and versatility of Black natural hair by way of pen, ink and watercolor portraits. In 2016, she illustrated the Anti-Adulting Coloring Book which is available for purchase at 5ptsartgallery.com/kierston-ghaznavi in addition to individual coloring pages.

Wearable Items

In terms of wearable items she makes, Ghaznavi crafts pins out of cardstock with sketched faces and icons. Her earrings are made from wood and fabric as well as polymer clay. “Making wearables is another way to make my art accessible to people,” she notes.

Earlier this year, Ghaznavi collaborated with Lisa Loving on the children’s book Hi, I’m Puddin’ Pie! published by Genre: Urban Arts. The story follows a young girl from Milwaukee who journeys with her family to the Montreal World’s Fair.

Ghaznavi reflects on the book, “It was very different from what I usually do, and it was a lot of work and re-doing to get it right, but it was really fun and I’m hoping to do more of that.”

She has also hosted paper doll-making workshops, both at Milwaukee Art Museum over the summer and at Lynden Sculpture Garden for their Winter Festival. “I really love to see the way that everyone else interprets the dolls,” Ghaznavi remarks. “I love seeing how they bring everybody back to this really imaginative time and they just go for it, and I don’t intervene.” Ghaznavi hopes to do more such workshops; in the meantime, she is working on her second coloring book and making more wearable items.

This is America

For her most recent art exhibition, “This is America 2024” by 5 Points Art Gallery + Studios, Ghaznavi created the mixed media installation “Make A Wish” to commemorate her beloved late daughter Amaya. Consisting of a highchair etched with loving words and affirmations that Amaya never got to hear, and adorned with a festive slice of birthday cake, the piece reflects the processes of long-term personal and collective grief while simultaneously commenting on the horrific tragedies of Black infant mortality, miscarriage and systemic disparities.

Ghaznavi shares, “Last year my daughter would have turned 16. She passed away at six weeks old in 2007, and grief is very unpredictable. When you think you have it under control, anything can just blow you down. It definitely did for her 16th. I was working on that piece during her birthday this year in June, which was difficult but felt really good…it felt like she was with me.

“I’ve been reading a lot about grief processing and things like that lately, and I wanted to express the way the past 17 years have felt. It’s hard to even wrap my head around the fact that it’s been that long. It’s always been her birthdays that have been really hard. Sometimes it feels like everyone else may have forgotten about her, and I understand that a lot of people don’t understand that kind of grief. The piece was kind of my way of just talking to her and saying what runs through my head all the time. I celebrate her like she’s still here. I grieve Amaya as a baby but also who she would have been right now - a 17 year old girl being in high school and sneaking doing TikToks of me (laughs). 

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“This was a huge detour from the work that I usually do, which I’m really interested in doing more conceptual things with. Art comes in many different languages, and this was me utilizing a different language to tell that story.”

With her next solo show at Jazz Gallery Center For the Arts coming up in March, Ghaznavi says it will contain powerful, impactful themes akin to the “Make A Wish” installation such as grief and mental health. “I’m in the sketching phase now,” she mentions. “I love to experiment with new things and see what I can get my hands on.”

Visit Kierston Ghaznavi’s website at keghaznavi.com to view and shop her work or get in touch. Follow her on Instagram @keghazillus.