Interview Hasti Sardashti

Iranian born artist living in London. She is always on the move. Moving through time & spaces through body & mind. Making art is for Hasti an attempt to stay in here & now -a vital practice to maintain stability, calm and fluidity in daily life. Making art is for Hasti like belonging to a place, having a home , like having a space where she can connect to the most genuine of herself and her immediate existence.

Could you please introduce yourself and tell us how you started in the arts? and your first experience in art making?

I guess like any other child I started drawing long before I started school. I remember my parents genuinely praising me for my drawings.If it was only a mother’s day card I did for my mum, or finding  a broken tile and painting a donkey on it with some blue oil paint, which was placed on the shelf by my dad for several years, that all made me feel that I must be doing something good with drawing though. Later on as a teenager my dad enrolled me in an art class in Tehran where I was the only child in a group of adults, who seem to be respecting me as their equal fellow art maker.  This fact alone and also the fact that they seem to have liked my stuff makes me still feel proud.

How would you describe yourself and your artwork?

I have no idea how to describe myself. This is a difficult question. I can only describe someone I can see with my eyes or an image in my head, but my image of myself doesn’t seem to be somehow complete. I see myself somehow as disabled. There are areas of myself I seem preferring to avoid. I guess everything that has to do with shame and the pain. Well just answering the question, I think I am pretty complex though. I am very curious and very stubborn. I need to do things my own way and like to explore and see things in my own way. And I am extremely passionate about a lot of things. I guess my artworks are an innocent portrayal of all these complexity, something what make me feel more whole. 

Where do you get your inspiration from?

I am not really sure if it is a process of being inspired from something or someone outside which connects to my inside world which inspires me or vice versa. I guess it is both. Everything for me is pretty personal even if it is just about politics and humanity or environment.

What emotions do you hope the viewers experience when looking at your art?

If I am honest I don’t think about the viewers at all when making arts. It is only me and what I want to say. After finishing the work I then become a viewer myself and wondering what is all about. Maybe I hope the same by the viewers. I am not really sure. 

When do you know that an artwork is finished ?

I used to believe that an art work is never finished.I kept changing things and painting over or made changes even few years later. I know other artists having similar attitude towards their art over centuries. I am not sure what has been behind their practice but by me I think I was not certain with my artist identity that time and I was full of fears and insecurities.  Since last few years my practice has changed. I just do what I have in my mind during the process of art making and then I stop. 

What has been the most exciting moment in your art career so far?

I have been always a big fan of street art. Since a teenager I liked painting on the walls. I like the concept of art belonging to everyone and not belonging to anyone in particular. I like the idea of art being seen and become the observer at the same time by busy people passing. I like the idea of dislocation though; something somewhere that doesn’t belong and challenges the ordinary. When I went to Barcelona in July 2019 where one of my paintings was exhibited as a poster as part of a group exhibition by Contemporary Art Station in a busy subway station, I saw myself standing there looking at the poster and feeling really emotional.

How long does it take to produce one work?

Can be from few weeks to few months. I find the process quiet hard to go through though. Everything is very personal and facing will take its own time.

What exciting projects are you working on right now?

I stared a series recently calls ‘Origins of Ambivalence’. I did one piece already, the second one is in process of making and there are at least two more left. I need just to find the right time to go through it all.

Website: www.hastisardashti.art

Instagram: www.instagram.com/sardashat

Facebook: www.facebook.com/HdotSardashti