the beautiful cat logo, which features scribbles and doodles over the letters

Simple Pleasures

Bansri Thakkar is a graphic designer and illustrator who loves cats, something we here at The Beautiful Cat can definitely appreciate! Her work is cat-tastic, not just because of all the cats but because of its simple yet important message: how do you find joy in the midst of depression?

Isolation, loneliness, and depression are on the rise. It can be really hard to feel like life is worth living, which is why it’s all the more important to find joy in simple, everyday acts. Thakkar doesn’t have prescriptive answers on how to do that, but she does offer glimmers of joy to help keep us going during the long night. So that we may do more than survive, so that we can build better worlds.

See the Exhibition

Thakkar’s work will be on display at The Beautiful Cat from April 12 – May 24, 2025. As a window gallery, the works will be viewable 24/7 at the northeast corner of Granville and Winthrop. It is located just a half block east of the Granville Red Line stop and a block west of the 147 express bus at 1070 W Granville, Chicago, IL 60660.

Light skinned hands holding a pale red bird, with teal and red foliage in the background.
a blue heart with a hole through it, and a woman and plants sitting at the bottom of the hole.
A portrait with a hole through the face. Instead of being gruesome, it's empty.
A human with a gray cat head, wearing a t-shirt that says: Real Cats Smoke Blunts

Meet the Artist

Indian artist Bansri Thakkar sticking her head up in a plastic dome that lets her look out on plants inside an exhibit

Bansri Thakkar

graphic designer, artist

Bansri Thakkar is an Indian graphic artist and designer. Her creative journey began at Srishti Institute of Art, Design & Technology in Bangalore, India where she graduated with a major in Visual Communication and Strategic Branding. She further cultivated new methodologies of making through practice-led research and experimentation at University of Illinois Chicago.

She is drawn to design punctuated with hints of quirk, humour, craft or interplay of analog and digital media. She enjoys a design process that is a combination of spontaneous work with an emotional tone and work driven by deliberate, systematized process. In her work she enjoys using typography and illustration the most.

Bansri finds joy in the ordinary and draws inspiration from the everyday mundane, capturing an insignificant moment and making it special. More recently she is discovering a deep interest in science and ecology, and finding ways to include that in her practice.

Follow Bansri
Bansri’s Website

Interview with Bansri Thakkar – Coming Soon!

A triptych with a blue and purplish-pink filter applied over it. The top image features a body sitting in the gaping hole carved out through the same face portrait as above, but this face has had its torso cut off so it's just hips and crossed legs. The second image is a head being dissected with meat hanging on hooks and a woman butcher sitting in front of the giant head. The last image features a chopped up body with three cats eating it.

Support the Artist

Bring Bansri’s work home or add her work to your bookshelf with an exhibition catalog.

Buy Bansri’s Art- Coming Soon!

Buy the Exhibition Catalog – Coming Soon!