Interview with Isabella Sherwani-Keeling
Isabella is an Artist from Hemel Hempstead UK.
She studied her BA in Fine Art Photography at Camberwell college of Arts starting in 2017. Here is where she discovered more on what a multidisciplinary practice is. Her work evolved from photographs, to collages and to paintings.
Isabella then went on to complete her Masters Degree (Contemporary photography and philosophies) at Central Saint Martins in 2022. Here she developed her multidisciplinary practice further, exploring further into paint and sculpture.
Can you tell us about the moment you decided to pursue a career as an artist?
There wasn't a specific moment that I decided to pursue art as my career. It's been an ongoing process since I was a child and it will carry on as long as I exist.
I always gravitated towards artistic activities as a child, whether it was painting or creating imaginary worlds in my head. I've always viewed the world in a creative way but have only just started to fully realise that now as an adult. There's not a day where I don't carry around my sketchbook with me or use my phone to record sounds. It's important to me to find inspiration for what's in front of me momentarily.
Expressing myself through art helps me to get through day to day life, it's a form of therapy for myself as well as being something for other people to see. I don't like to plan too far ahead as I feel that it's important for my work to come naturally to me, not forced. Which is exciting because I never know what my work will be like in a year's time... or even what it will be like next week.
I'm following my natural instinct to create and that's why I am on the road to pursuing my career as an artist.
What kind of an artist do you ultimately see yourself?
I see myself as adaptable, in various ways. My art adapts to my current state of mind or environment that I'm in. It's an extension of my mind.
What do you want your art to convey to the people who see it? What is the meaning or creative motivation behind your work?
What's most important to me is that people can see that you can express yourself in whatever way you want to. For example with myself, I've always found it tricky to verbally express exactly how I'm feeling, but imagery and music felt like a very safe space to me.
Art has helped me learn that it's more than ok to be myself and most importantly that it's ok to be queer. Art is fluid and interchangeable, it can be whatever you want it to be and you can be whoever you want to be too. I like to think that individual people have their own singular experience of my work, what can they see, hear or feel? In relation to their own circumstances.
Can you tell us about the process you use to create your works? What is your typical workday routine?
Generally I don't sketch out or over plan my work. I know when it's time and when I'm ready to let out whatever it is. I work a lot with acrylic and oil paint, and also coloured pencils. My practice has evolved from photography, video art and sound. Currently painting/drawing is what I work with, it's always been what I gravitate towards doing but whatever medium I feel is right for what I'm making I will use.
I have also done projects which I created more of an outline for, throughout lockdown I did a project called Dream Diaries. Here I kept a journal of the vivid dreams I was experiencing and each day I would read the most recent one back over and over again and created paintings in response to each dream.
Where do you find inspiration? What motivates you to create?
I like to find inspiration in the human experience. It can be things that I come across in day to day life or something slightly deeper like overcoming hardships or grief.
In my Masters I studied philosophy as part of my course, this sparked my motivation in using philosophy to look at my practice in a new way. Two books that have inspired me are ‘A thousand plateaus’ by Deluze and Guattari and ‘Forms of Desire - Sexual orientation and the social constructionist controversy’ by Garland. Reading motivates me to create, it forms images in my mind that I then want to explore.
What has been your most outstanding achievement to date?
Since graduating I have had the honor of exhibiting my work in London and New York. That's been my biggest highlight so far, being able to show my work to a wider audience.
What are your ultimate career goals?
Career wise, I don't want to change myself or my art to fit in anywhere. So my goal is for my work to reach the people who it is supposed to. I want to stay true to who I am and be able to express myself through my work as I always do.
What are you working on now, and what can we expect from you soon?
I’m currently working on a series of drawings which I’d like to exhibit in London in 2023. I’m also working on opening an online shop so people can purchase prints, books and lots of other things.
