Armaan Mumtaz

BIO

Hi! My name is Armaan Mumtaz, I'm a sophomore at the University of California, Berkeley, double majoring in Art Practice and Media Studies with a minor in Ethnic Studies. While art practice (particularly 2D visual mediums) have persisted as a central passion throughout my time as a hobbyist and student, my supporting interests have provided me with expansive knowledge in areas of pop culture, fashion history, design, and editorial illustration. More than anything, what each of these interests constitutes is my core focus on media applications of visual art forms. My priority (in both process and practice) when considering these media applications, is integrating principles of equity, sustainability, and racial justice. As a young POC emerging in my hopes to pursue the arts, I hope for nothing more than to promote the production of visuals that set about necessary changes in culture.

STATEMENT

This collection of self portraits, varying in degrees of realism and concept, are a product of a sudden shift I experienced coinciding with my departure from what I considered to be my core teenage years. This shift became clear to me as I suddenly felt an intense pull towards self portraiture—a particular practice I had done my best to avoid for all my years leading up to that shift. I had previously considered self portraits to be difficult to wrap my head around, as they required a particular type of reflection that I didn't have the confidence to approach. Once I realised that I still hadn't shaken this gravitation towards the self portrait after completing one, I decided I would carry on to complete a small concentration of sorts focusing on nothing but myself. It felt necessary, and like something I just had to get out—a sort of reckoning with my own form, culture, and mentality. Unlike most concentrations, which tend to bear at least some visually consistent elements throughout them to carry on a visible theme, this collection ended up being less visually interconnected and more emotionally. One commonality between each piece, even despite differences in stylistic approach and medium, is that each one is an interpretation of a specific landmark in the geography of my daily thought processes (both those of mundanity and those of great significance). Each one takes a second to dissect a particular emotional experience I needed to channel and release, in a way I had yet to throughout the years prior. The interesting thing about these pieces that I didn't even notice until I had completed them that I continuously cycled back to this concept of duality, or depicting interactions between duplicates of myself, likely in order to demonstrate an internal dialogue. I'm still not entirely sure why I felt so inclined to depict myself as a product of some sort of mitosis, as I am still unsure as to why I needed so desperately to complete these self portraits, but what I do know is that that uncertainty seems to define this collection overall. The works, as they stand individually and collectively, show evidence that there was no time for stopping to reflect along the way, they were simply created as signals of the internal happenings I felt compelled to release. Taking notes from my most familiar cultural imagery, my emotional experience as an ongoing and ever-developing one, and even my own stylistic tendencies, I feel that these works (as varied as they may be) are the clearest reflection of myself I have created yet.

Interview with Armaan Mumtaz

Written by Andreana Donahue

Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you became interested in becoming an artist? What were some early influences?

I'm a 19-year-old student artist of lived Latino, South Asian, and Muslim experience creating 2D visual works that, at the moment, revolve very closely around meditations on my cultural upbringing and reconciliations of my identity within my culture. Growing up in a Mexican-Pakistani household, the visual influences with a stronghold on my creative approach included beaded Salwar Kameez worn by my Pakistani relatives and donned by Bollywood superstars, theatrical colour language and excess of said Bollywood films, Islamic home decor, Mexican-Catholic imagery of La Virgen de Guadalupe, and rich themes of faith in Latino culture. On a pop culture level, my fixations created an interesting overlap with my love for anime and manga, my affinity for fantasy JRPG games, my fascination with jewelry, and my love of fashion—particularly fashion illustration. Whether these influences manifested as aspects of my visual language, or more so informed the sensibility with which I approached colour, theatricality, beauty, and depiction of self, they remain deeply ingrained in my art-making process today.

Where are you currently based and what initially attracted you to working in this community? Are there any aspects of this specific place that have surfaced in your work?

I'm currently based in Berkeley, California, where I study as an Art Practice-Media Studies double major at the University of California, Berkeley. Being a university student while working to further my creative growth has informed much of the core thought process behind my ideation for specific works, particularly my endeavors in self-portraiture. On a surface level, my stepping into life as a college student living outside of my hometown was what spurred my ongoing fixation with using conceptual self-portraiture as my central mode of creation, as I was stepping into space where I was able to meditate on my identity and growth through a reflective lens. More deeply, my secondary education gave me more tools to understand my positionality as a young person of colour, and as a Muslim person. In particular, themes of colonialism's effects on my ancestries came to add an additional layer that helped define the way I approached processing of cultural identity—providing robust historical juxtaposition for my thought process and, in all frankness, adding layers of cathartic complication to my self-reflection.

Can you tell us about your studio space? What are some of the most crucial aspects of a studio that make it workable for you?

As a student, I'm moving at the very least once a year, whether from apartment to apartment or to my hometown for break periods, so my studio space is essentially the nearest, largest flat surface I can find in my living space at a given time. For most of the past year this looked like the kitchen table in my apartment, but in the past it's looked like my tiny dorm room desk, and the dining room table in my childhood home. For me, the most important requirement I consider when searching for a viable workspace is that I can access said space at whatever hour of the day. More specifically, I tend to work in very sporadic intervals of time that usually go into the dark morning hours. This is less of a conscious choice and more of a habit, but it does mean that whatever space I choose to work in needs to be available to me without specified hours of operation or availability, or a great distance from my living space. Essentially, a space where I can work at strange hours without disturbing others.

What is a typical day like?

On a day-to-day basis, I find that a lot of my time is spent performing various rituals through which I practice being attentive with myself and my self-preservation. These rituals are really simple and look like taking care of myself physically, burning incense, drinking herbal teas, and making it a point to fulfill every step of whatever my current "self-care" routine may be. I see this process of nurturing my tendency to adopt activities into a sort of routinised self-meditation process as a way to nurture my creative process as well, as I've experienced that I create and conceptualise most freely once I've curated a really specific vibe (depending on what I feel is most necessary on that day). This, of course, is a picture of my ideal day, as routinising meditative practices is easier said than consistently done, and plenty of days I spend are far less constructed. In addition, I have time to take care of myself more acutely now while university is out of session, but when I'm actively studying, my days are much more hectic and supported by an objective to get things done and get through the day.

What gets you in a creative groove? What puts a damper on your groove?

Like most people, music is the primary activating agent I choose when trying to slip into a creative flow. I'm somebody who spends (probably excessively) large amounts of time curating my music playlists, especially since I know it's something that serves such an important role in my day-to-day life. With that in mind, I tend to put the utmost effort into compiling music that speaks to me most, not only for creative purposes but in general as well! When I'm specifically sat down somewhere and aiming to slip into a headspace of visual thinking, I prefer to listen to electronic and alternative artists whose work, more than anything else, serves to create robust and expansive soundscapes—or sonic environments that feel highly lived in and fertile with opportunity for ideas. In all honesty, I think the things that most damper my mood come from myself. As I'm extremely easily distracted, even minute things can snap me out of my creative headspace in a way that completely pulls me away and necessitates a whole new effort to slip back into it. This is actually another reason I prefer immersing myself in music, as it prevents most distractions! Aside from that, I tend to have a semi-destructive tendency to yearn for creating and bubble over with visual ideas at the most inopportune times, or worse yet, when I have a more imminent responsibility to see to.

What criteria do you follow for selecting materials? Do you prefer to maintain a narrow focus or work across diverse media? How do you navigate the limitations and possibilities that result from this path?

When it comes to selecting materials, I find that I most frequently work in ink, graphite, and coloured pencil. This is a pretty narrowed material focus that I choose to stick to most often, mainly due to its overall capacity for carving out varied depths. A lot of my "rendering" process and a general feature of my mark-making is built on a slow, gradual process of almost carving or hollowing out increasingly thick pockets of depth—depth I feel is most satisfyingly achieved through mediums like pen or pencil. If I were to single out one constant in my material favouritism, it would be ballpoint pen, which is a medium I find to be extremely satisfying due to its gliding quality and its ability to almost indent the surface being drawn on. One semi-challenging parameter this narrowed selection of materials brings about is the difficulty to reconcile the level of detail with the size of the work. With mediums like ballpoint pen, for example, intense depth can be achieved, but when the size of the work is particularly large, maintaining that level of detail throughout to avoid an unfinished feeling can lead to an extremely time-consuming and lengthy process. For better or for worse, this usually leads to situations where I choose to grin and bear the prospect of a long road ahead in the process (so as to avoid sacrificing detail). On the other hand, I also work fairly frequently in digital illustration, where it's a bit less time-intensive to strive for more packed-in detail.

Can you walk us through your overall process? How would you describe your approach to manipulating materials? What about decision-making and editing?

Decision-making and the editing process happen rather unpredictably throughout the completion of a project since a lot of that process is characterised by reckoning with the end product looking slightly different than the original idea. This is especially true for me since the very beginning of my process is sparked by an essentially "completed" image formulating in my head, comprised of several different aspects. My objective thereafter is mainly to recreate that mental image, but of course, due to limitations and the realities of the process informing the work, that original image doesn't always manifest exactly the same. With that said, I don't necessarily feel that that's a consequence of the process by any means, rather a way the work grows. Many of the alterations that distinguish the finished product from the original, imaginary picture are made after realisations that a certain addition simply isn't necessary, or might not add much visual value. I can tend to doubt myself at these points in my process, especially when I feel like it's almost a disrespect to the original vision, but once I make the necessary departures, I feel comfortable that the changes are purely a symptom of the image's maturing as it comes into being.

Can you talk about some of the ongoing interests, imagery, and concepts that have informed your process and body of work over time? How do you anticipate your work progressing in the future?

There's such an overwhelming expanse of visual and thematic influences that have shaped the way I create today, but I would say most of the core influences come from stages in my stylistic evolution as I've come into my "artistic identity" (a process I wouldn't dare to say was anywhere near complete.) I feel that the fixations on anime, manga, and video game art, have directly influenced the aspects of my work that have minimal regard for attempting to confine themselves within conventions of realistic representation, imbuing much of my creative process with a full admittance that hyper-realism is not the objective. I feel that my love of fashion and editorial photography have informed my sensibilities around staging illustrations as though they were photographs capturing a still moment, as well as my approach to aesthetic beauty being both parades and challenged (especially when in a classical sense). Hand in hand with this relationship I navigate with classical notions of beauty, I feel that religious iconography, in the way that it's laced itself through my life as both Islamic and Catholic images, has informed much of the subject matter I work through. A lot of my creation meditating on concepts of spirituality within a larger effort to reconcile with self-image and identity as a vessel for dual spirituality. More particularly, my recent works have been characterised by a fixation on self-portraiture, whether it manifests as literal interpretations of my physical form adorned by varied symbolic imagery, or concepts that are assigned to represent me. Self-portraiture has felt like a necessary step in my ongoing process of creative maturing, as I've entered a stage in my life where I'm making efforts to and gaining the ability to reflect on myself with heightened clarity. I can't say whether or not I definitively know if this fixation still has a grip on my creative process, but I do know I'm not quite done exploring depictions of the self yet.

Do you pursue any collaborations, projects, or careers in addition to your studio practice? If so, can you tell us more about those projects, and are there connections between your studio practice and these endeavours?

The central creative position I devote time to outside of my personal studio practice is working as a Senior Illustrator at The Daily Californian, which is the city and university paper for Berkeley, California. As an illustrator, I produce visuals that accompany written content, most commonly illustration for the paper's Arts column (which puts out pop-culture content and event coverage, as well as music, film, and television reviews). Fulfilling this position requires me to utilise, in essence, the same illustrative skills that I employ when creating my own artwork, revealing that the largest difference with the editorial illustration is the energy. I find that most of the work I create for editorial publishing is intended to communicate as approachable or palatable for a wider audience, which is something I absolutely have no regard for when creating independent studio work. Apart from my practice, I'm also an Operations Organiser at BARE Magazine, where I've assisted in event planning and hosting, as well as a Visitor Services Assistant at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.

As a result of the pandemic, many artists have experienced limited access to their studios or loss of exhibitions, income, or other opportunities. Has your way of working (or not working) shifted significantly during this time? Are there any unexpected insights or particular challenges you’ve experienced?

I don't feel that the pandemic changed much of my process beyond the simple fact that my access to campus studios was revoked due to the unfortunate circumstances of the pandemic. This meant a lot of reformatting my personal living space to accommodate the occasionally messy aspects of my creative process that would have normally been dealt with outside. This hasn't necessarily presented huge challenges, in fact, in some ways, I feel as though confinement into my living space has further enabled my tendency to have a nocturnally creative routine (for better or for worse in regards to my sleep schedule).

In a time that seems to be marked by uncertainty, collective anxiety, and increasing social unrest, why do you think the perspectives and contributions of artists remain meaningful? Do you feel a natural relationship exists between your work (or the role artists play more broadly) and confronting established systems—of power, cultural institutions, or otherwise?

I feel that the role of the artist is just as, if not more, important now than it ever has been, what with the necessity for radical imagination in the so easily convoluted landscape of social media and the internet. The overall push towards recognising the systemic precedents of marginalisation set by settler colonialism, white supremacy, and late-stage capitalism, while it may be nothing more than a first step, is a sign that progress has become a goal of the general public in a way that is increasingly heard on a large scale. Art, as a mode for imagining a radically liberated and united future that outgrows systemic racism, classism, and brutality is beyond necessary, as it is one of the many tools that will help concretely envision the steps towards that future. Creativity, more generally speaking, is necessary in conceptualising a life beyond the systems we live under today, and will be one of the tools that lead to global liberation. I feel, considering my positionality as a person of colour coming from a lived Latino, South Asian, and Muslim experience, thrilled that I have reached a place in my artistic growth where I feel as though I'm truly owning my identity and visually dissecting my experiencing of maturing on multiple levels. For me, it feels radical within the precedent of how I've confronted myself throughout my own life when I take the space required to put artwork out into the world that is fully me and everything I stand for at my particular intersection of identities. Considering the nature of my work in this way, and seeing it as an extended meditation on self-discovery, I don't feel that I am an artist who is necessarily contributing to direct change on a systemic, community-wide level, but I do feel that this cathartic and ritualistic process of demonstratively establishing my identity is necessary for me nonetheless. Whatever implications may come from being who I am and putting out visual extensions of myself, at the end of the day I still feel it's of the utmost importance to centre Black creatives and Indigenous creatives as they communicate whatever they may need and whatever they feel is necessary.

Can you share some of your recent influences? Are there specific works—from visual art, literature, film, or music—that are important to you?

Some influences that have taken particular hold of my creative process and occupied my mind as of late are EarthEater's music video for her track, "Faith Consuming Hope", M.I.A.'s sophomore album "Kala", the Schiaparelli Spring/Summer 2021 Haute Couture collection, nun habits, Trad Goth makeup, and my exciting discovery of the California-based dark-wave, post-punk band, "Aurat" who frequently put out songs with Urdu lyrics. Apart from these more recent inspirations that have bubbled up, there are more constant and longstanding influences that I believe have shaped my work, particularly speaking to my love for the work of Yoshitaka Amano. I've always felt captivated by the sense of anger captured in the faces he draws, juxtaposed against the impossibly lush, expansive watercolour environments he weaves throughout his works, on top of his interesting aesthetic that sits at an interesting crossroads of court jester garb and Hieronymus Bosch demon. Another long-time influence of mine comes from Marian Zazeela, who does incredible work in manipulating and wildly abstracting concepts of Arabic calligraphy to form wonderful prints and patterns, which has actually prompted me to attempt a similar method to adapt into my own work.

Who are some contemporary artists you’re excited about? What are the best exhibitions you’ve seen in recent memory?

The best exhibition I've seen in recent memory was one I happened to see just before starting my shift at the Berkeley Art Museum, which was the Rosie Lee Tompkins Retrospective. To be able to see her quilts up close, and fully digest the endlessly varied, endlessly rich, and endlessly textured patches that make up the massive quilts was deeply moving. Particularly, I felt moved by the way her work so interestingly reflected on, celebrated, and observed themes of spirituality and divinity. Having the opportunity to walk among her quilts, of which there was a near-overwhelming amount, was thrilling.

To find out more about Armaan Mumtaz check out their Instagram and website.