Crown Heights Artist Designs Pride Month Skittles Pack

CROWN HEIGHTS, NY — A Crown Heights artist was one of five to live out a childhood fantasy and decorate a Skittles wrapper for Pride Month.

As part of Skittles' Pride Month celebration, Crown Heights local Shanée Benjamin's colorful design sits on a Skittles pack with a black and white logo, and the word "pride" in a pink heart.

"I'm a 90's baby, and it's surreal to see my art celebrating authenticity with my fav nostalgic treat," Benjamin wrote in an Instagram post.

Benjamin was one of five artists — including one from Bushwick — to design packs for the month of June. A dollar of each pride pack sale, up to $100,000, will be donated to GLAAD, a nonprofit that focuses on LGBTQ advocacy.

The colorful packs will be available in 4oz share packs and 15.6oz standing pouches nationwide through mid-July.

"Growing up eating Skittles, now I'm making a pack — that is like the coolest thing ever for me," Benjamin said in a video posted to Skittles' website.

Benjamin said her artwork helps her communicate and explore her identity, which goes far beyond being queer and Black.

"I just love experimenting in many ways at how I can illustrate my experience as a multifaceted Black human being," Benjamin said. "Of course I'm a Black woman, of course I'm a queer woman, but I kind of want those to be secondary to me because I'm just more than those two traits."

Zipeng Zhu, an artist from Bushwick, designed a pack covered in bright circles and stars with a big smiley face in the middle. Zhu said his artistic style has developed as he has come into his identity.

"When I was younger I think I was hiding who I am, I was rejecting myself — therefore a lot of my work were conservative, and I guess, uninspired," Zhu said. "My work has became more colorful, louder and more playful in general."

Skittles Pride Month celebrations also asked the artists what they're listening to — for Benjamin, it's the audiobook of Homebodies, a novel by Tembe Denton-Hurst.