Illustrator Claudia Chanhoi's Images are a Cheeky Delight

February 5, 2020

Illustrator Claudia Chanhoi (known to her Instagram faithful as BrainXEyes) creates bawdy images that pop with color, humor, and sharp perspectives on contemporary dating and gender mores. Her work—think suggestive pickles, cartoonishly glistening butts, disembodied breasts—pushes against the puritanical with a surreal, pop edge. She’s collaborated with breast cancer awareness organization CoppaFeel! and explored social media censorship in her work. Claudia has worked with HarperCollins Publishers, Threadless, and Lush and has exhibited around the world.

If I weren’t an illustrator I would be… a curator or something that’s art-related.

I hope my work… can be recognized by more people, and hopefully my work brings them some sort of happiness or inspiration.

My definition of success is… getting recognition and being able to work with dream clients or work on dream projects!

When Instagram censored my images I thought… about all those sexually suggestive images and wondered how would they be alright if my art was not “appropriate?” That’s how I created my “scenery” series—adding birds to the body parts and playing with the captions of my art.

My ideal Saturday afternoon is… yoga, having my sketchbook and laptop, and working at a nice cafe with a cup of coffee.

I would define rich as earning… a significant amount of money but also people’s respect as a person and as a profession.

I had to fire a client once because… I have never fired a client, but I have turned a client down before we kick-started the project because I thought the terms weren’t fair to me as an illustrator. Somehow we have to prepare for the situation where we need to say no if the client can’t provide a fair brief and project.

My best ideas come to me when… I am not tired, hungry, or thirsty. Quite physical, really.