Shama (The Flame) is from the series Bollywouldn’t featuring queers and trans South Asians to pose in fictional Bollywood movie posters rendered in marker. Shama, whose name means ‘flame’, was pregnant at the time of the portrait sitting. A candle glows in her belly, perilously tempting a myriad of moths towards her in a contemplating of birth, re-birth and moth-erhood.  

TextaQueen’s work aims to give agency back to South Asians marginalised within their cultures, driven by a desire to represent their community in the diversity of complexities which expand beyond singular ideas of identity.  

Shame (The Flame) is currently featured as a large-scale print in the Metro Tunnel Creative Program, installed at the construction-site hoarding at Anzac Station.