Shumaiya Khan is a British Bengali artist, writer, and creative.

Experimenting with texture and motion Shumaiya's work explores feminine expression, societal interaction, morality & spirituality. Layering pigment over a series of days or weeks, her works use varying viscosities of paint and colour to create works with unique dimension and texture.

Artiq We recently had the pleasure of visiting your studio, which is situated within an amazing former industrial kitchen. How does it feel to be making work within this unique space?

Shumaiya It is a wonderfully expansive space and there’s – usually – tons of light. How does it feel? Well, as much as I love the space and cool as it is, because of the way the space has been designed and a lot of old kitchen ware still here (I’m currently storing prints, paper pieces, tape and canvas keys in the fancy drawer-fridges), there are challenges. I’ve had to get creative and organised what I’m painting. How large my paintings are, at what stage of drying they’re at, any urgent commissions, where they’re going to fit and so on. Most of the walls are plastered breeze blocks, so there’s a lot of paintings on the floor.

Even still though, I think the space is especially wonderful in the summer. I’ve got piles of books and plants everywhere. There’s a lot of freedom to make the space your own. It’s going to be a shift moving into actual purpose-built artist studios when I do my MA. Although, I am looking forward to making wall space- just a bit.

Artiq In what ways has your background in design informed your current practice?

Shumaiya My critical thinking skills I’ve used as creative/art director have come in use when contextualising what I’m painting, drawing or writing. Measuring the conversation between myself and the paintings, how we can push each other further.

I’d worked with a lot of spiritual, beauty travel and luxury goods clients. Current events, heritage, spirituality, language, wellbeing, politics are all things which make up so much frame work of campaigns and brands I’d build and still build occasionally and those themes are still present in my work.

However, when you throw these themes into art, there’s a switch which happens. The art exists in its own dimension. There’s less studying the moment and more of a painting itself telling you what the event is. Art doesn’t care. It plays by its own rules. It isn’t trying to sell you anything and I think that’s one of my favourite parts when it comes to making art.

I think people tend to assume colour, layout or something else aesthetic will have carried over and yes, some of it is evident. However, those aspects are often borrowed from databases in spirituality and nature, rather than being an aesthetic choice as such.

Artiq You touch upon the importance of spirituality and feminine expression within your practice. Can you further explain these influences?

Shumaiya Through my art practice, and these conversations I’d have with the paintings which I’ve said serve as a mirror to some capacity for myself; my spiritual identity really started to flourish. I share a private language with my paintings where I was allowed to say who I am.

I had a lot of knowledge about astrology, knowledge of a few Buddhist and eventually Tasawuf (Muslim/Sufi) practices, how to read tarot, and a keen interest in eastern and Greek philosophy. All these forms of metaphysical exploration have been embedded into my practice all along. Be it the colour of paintings reflected in the ‘chakra’, or ‘7 stages of nafs’ systems or the poetry which points to the cosmic weather. Many paintings have Qur’anic references in the forms of astronomy or fruit, named after Greek Gods and asteroids.

To speak more on feminine expression. This energy was ever present. I knew I had to claim who I was and be honest about it before someone else told me who I was. And now, it’s almost as though I’m speaking to many women through my paintings as we work together in our own ways. No, we’re not angry all the time, but hell, we are powerful. I want people to remember that.

Artiq You will soon be starting an MA at City and Guilds, London. What are the key things you hope to gain from this experience?

Shumaiya It definitely feels like the right time to be undertaking this MA. I want to push the scale of my work, but also, possibly make some sculpture to compliment the paintings, physically build out the worlds of my works. I’ve already set the intention of making more challenging work which is evident with my recent oil paintings. Pushing the intensity of the forms, writing slightly more intense literature about the world while painting, which I’ve had to be brave about. I’m hoping the course supports me to really push things further than I thought I could. I’m a hugely ambitious person. I know what MAs can do for artists, and without saying too much about my hopes, I’m going to give my all and some. What will be will be.

Artiq You work with a rich colour palette in your painting, often using deep greens, blues and reds. Can you discuss the role of colour within your practice?

Shumaiya The first being, I’ve seen to do a lot with mood, temperament and spirituality. It’s been a natural process of letting the colours choose themselves. They say green is the colour of heaven, it’s also the colour of the heart chakra. So those paintings are deeply heartfelt and calm. However, orangey red is to do with the sacral which is our creative, sensual section and almost purposely fit into the paintings about women of this realm. There’s a slight divide between paintings about heavenly worlds beyond what we know, and then paintings about logical action on planet earth. They feel a lot more tainted, full of desire and heat.

I’d previously made a painting with friend, Reiki Master Olivia Howitt who performed a sound bath while I worked. There were obvious visual shifts in the colours and marks made when different frequencies were played. So even now, the music or Quran verses I’ll listen to while paintings, are also intuitively chosen on the day.

I will say though, colour isn’t just limited to a broad spiritual arc, sometimes it’s about controlling the temperature in the room or the association between how something comes across.

Artiq You work both on canvas and paper- can you share the different approaches you take to each? Are there any other mediums you hope to work with in the future?

Shumaiya A long time ago, I’d worked with porcelain, and it’s something I want to do again, almost as this romantic, Greek statue moment. The drawings on paper usually serve as warm ups, studies for the larger paintings. The paintings are composed of multiple layers of movement which can take anything from a day to a couple of weeks including rest. Whereas the paper pieces, artworks in their own right, are one- a few singular moments. The paper pieces are quicker and I feel they grow at a different pace to the paintings. Almost like these notes, do I like this direction of flow on the page? Where’s the concentration needed, and so on.

Artiq Do you have any upcoming projects or exhibitions that you would like to share with us?

Shumaiya No exhibitions just yet. Something might be brewing between myself and friend/another Artiq artist, Anastasya Martynova, over the summer and my work is always up at my current studio space at Firepit based in North Greenwich. Other than that, I’m going to continue painting!