Maria "Hatecopy" Qamar

 

 

Maria Qamar is a first-generation Canadian from a traditional South Asian family; Gujarati and Bangladeshi. She moved to Canada at the age of nine in 2000 and was forced to endure bullying and racism as a young girl in a post 9/11 world. She later recalled, “I started going home and drawing comics about these adversities.”

Qamar found her artistic voice through Instagram under the name @Hatecopy where her Artwork resonated with the Desi community, particularly the second generation. Art became a means for her to handle realities of cultural duality in the early 2000s North American context, as well as discuss gender inequalities, feminism, politics and themes of romance. 

On August 1, 2019, Maria Qamar broke into the New York art world with her first U.S. solo exhibition FRAAAANDSHIP! at RICHARD TAITTINGER GALLERY, which received great press acclaim by The New York Times, Forbes, Vice, TimeOut New York, Vogue, The Wall Street Journal and Artnet News. In December 2019, Qamar exhibited in Europe for the first time presenting the solo exhibition FIGHT BETI, FIGHT! at Phillips Paris. Her work is collected by Mindy Kaling and was featured on The Mindy Project. She is also the author of the book Trust No Aunty published in 2017. Her artwork has been shown in the MOCA, AGO in Toronto, Marvel Studios, and the Oxo Tower Wharf in London, England. She has been featured on NPR, CBC, BBC, Al Jazeera, HarpersBAZAAR,The Toronto Star, and Elle.