CREATIVE DISCIPLINE-
Painting on canvas and wood. Spoken word performance, incorporating movement and song

PRIMARY MEDIUM(S)- 
Oil paint- canvas and wood, and language

ARTIST STATEMENT-

I am a Black, Lesbian, trilingual multi disciplinary artist with a focus on narrtive story telling through woven, constructed tapestry oil paintings, and performance art; expressed through spoken word, song and movement. In 2018 I was awarded a Bachelors of Arts degree from the university of Bangalore India, with a triple major in sociology, economics and history. It is through the sociologist informed lens that I have learned to approach my painting process. The ideas for my work stem from personal experiences, literature, film, documentary, books- I create mind webs around specific concepts; archiving everything I consume even moments of conversation between family and friends. The stories told in my work are powerful; because they are expressed by the people themselves through the female gaze. The work is deeper when it is a black and brown woman, painting about other black and brown women there’s an understanding of empathy and comprehension of the narrative. The paintings are meant to feel poetic, nostalgic, somber as we contemplate our collective outcome in moving from this moment of time, onto the next. What does our future look like? Who will we Become? In my work I vreat borders and narratives woven through ornate botanical arrangements. I have a deep affinity and love for plants and maps. If given the opportunity to create large scale tapestry onstallations in the Ankhlave Garden, I would combine two of my favorite theme os cartography and botanicals. I intend to reasearch different plants anf crate portait tapestries mapping their history and origin. 

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY- 
When I was six years old I moved with my family from Tulsa Oklahoma to England, followed by the UAE. By the time I turned thirteen I lived back and forth between the UAE and India for nine years. In the constant uprooting I developed the feeling of statelessness. I was a nomadic outsider, bilingual (later to become trilingual) I passed as if I belonged, the melanin of my skin and fluency of my tongue taught me that there were communities willing to accept me as one of their own, never knowing the ethnicity of my blood line. It is within this intimate sphere of trust that I learned the beauty of different cultures as well as their hidden evil. In passing as Arab or a mixed Indian woman, just as some Black Americans had passed as white; by being close to the ones that hate and fear you, without their knowing, it is then that one truly learns the depths of their hate and lengths to which this fear will drive them to violence. Moving back to the US however I learned what I was to find to be the scariest lesson of all, in the place meant to be my country, my home, I still remain stateless. 

Instagram-
@ibtisamtasnim

IBTISAM TASNIM ZAMAN

New York, NY