Our story & mission:

Weiskei's origin began with the formation of an artists' group, Artsy Queers.Liu returned to Boston in 2023, and was surprised by the changes. Having lived in Allston-Brighton for most of his life, Liu noticed that there were many queer creatives in the city, but now little sense of community. As bigger businesses took over mom and pop shops, queer social spaces, along with murals and quirky neighborhood charm, were pushed out. For a city with so many art museums and art school graduates, it felt like things had become quiet and grey. Liu felt a strong desire for connection and community, and this sparked the creation of a small group chat titled "Artsy Queers". Liu would spend the next few months reaching out to queer artists from all over Boston and surrounding areas, helping people make creative connections, hosting events and creating Discord server as a virtual community space. That is how Artsy Queers was born.Despite being only spread through word of mouth, membership quickly grew to over 100 within the first few months. Today, events and meetups are held bimonthly and the server acts as a community space, event calendar as well as 'job' board. Whether you're hoping to join our next plein air session, hunting for the best risograph printer in the area, or looking for the perfect artist to create queer illustrations for your tabletop game, Artsy Queers has a space for it all.The group has two main purposes:
1) to bring together queer creatives and facilitate the exchange of skills,
2) creating a stronger queer creative community by hosting and attending local events.
3) Revitalizing the art scene in Boston.In December 2024, Weiskei was established. At it's core, Weiskei is about queer visibility and power. Nearly all products are made by hand in Boston by Liu, with the exception of some stickers that are printed and cut by another queer artist in Brooklyn, NY. Occasionally, Weiskei features the work of Artsy Queers members (when events permit it) with the goal of spreading queer voices and gaining visibility for new and underrepresented artists. Oftentimes, tabling at markets is prohibitive in terms of price, time and accessibility, and the artists we help would otherwise be unable to do so. Selling through Weiskei comes at no cost to the original artists and they keep 100% of their profits, with Weiskei covering all fees and expenses. Each item sold comes with an artist's contact information, so please be sure to check out their work and social media!Click here to return to homepage.

About Aaric Liu:

Aaric Liu is a dark fantasy concept artist and illustrator based in Boston, MA. He grew up fascinated by the dark neon visuals of 1980's Cantonese horror-comedies, fishing for cod on Norwegian waters, and playing too many farming games on GameBoy Advance. Liu was first introduced to the world of fantasy illustration through Dungeons and Dragons in 2017 and began self-studying digital painting in 2021. Eventually, he studied beneath his mentors Donato Giancola, Scott M. Fischer, Winona Nelson and Sam Weber. Liu's work aims to explore the intersection of queer identity and Western high fantasy, while simultaneously tapping into the familiar nostaglic aesthetics of East Asian animation. (He is especially proud of depicting one of the first non-binary characters in Call of Cthulhu!) Liu is of Mongolian and Han descent.Contact: weiskei artists goods @gmail. com