Mahjabin Imam Majumdar

from Journal of Creative Arts & Minds - Vol. 8, Fall 2023

Carole Böggemann Peirson

JCAM: Where were you born and does that place still influence you?

MIM: I was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Although I am living and practicing my art in India for a long time now, my early life was spent in Bangladesh. The desire to create an alternative space where one can belong, can rest, is perhaps born out of my memories and associations with the two places at the same time, the co-existence of my immediate surroundings, what I see, feel, the everyday with the memory and the bitter-sweet sense of loss and dilemma of homeland are caught between the overlapped spaces of estrangement and togetherness, I continue to straddle the two worlds. I want my work to live in such a twilight zone of sensibility.

JCAM: Where do you live now and how does that place influence you?

MIM: I came to India to study art at Visva Bharati University in Santiniketan, which is founded by the Indian poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore. My Idea and perception of creativity has been greatly enriched by the idea and spirits of Tagore. As an educationist he emphasized that the illusion of geographical barriers should disappear from creative ideas to bring diversity in one’s respective creative field. Since Santiniketan (the university campus) is nestled within natural surroundings, it helped me to grow as an individual in the vastness and beauty of nature. Santiniketan has one of the oldest and the most important art institutions in India which is known as “Kala Bhavana”. As a student of art, I had the opportunity to see the magnificent art works done by its masters. As David Hockney said, ‘’Teaching people to draw is teaching people to look and then see, an extremely useful education as it develops the pleasure of looking, and then one notices how beautiful the world is.” I believe Santiniketan and Kala Bhavana has taught me a lot on being able to do this.

JCAM: Do you have family, friends, or fellow artists who support you in your work, life and art making?

MIM: Yes, my family supports me in my work. My husband is also a visual artist and teaching art at the University, so we support and understand each other in our work, life and art making. I consider the support and often critical assessment by my family, friends and fellow artists, extremely valuable for my creativity and art making.

JCAM: When and how did you start making art?

MIM: I was inclined to make art from a very young age. Like any other child I had a private universe of my own, which was full of imagination. I did not like school much. I think the primary reason behind it was mathematics. I was absolutely petrified of maths and numbers and I found school as a very regimented and gloomy kind of place. So I used to concentrate mostly on the subjects like art, literature and history. My parents loved and appreciated art. I often used to observe my mother when she would draw or paint. Although she was not a trained artist she had a knack and interest in art. The thick consistency of paint and the strong smell appealed to me immensely.

JCAM: Why do you make art now?

MIM: Why do I make art? Well I think that is what I can do better compared to most of the other things in life. Art helps me find balance as a human being, and with time I have realized that making art is something I truly want to do. The process of making art is not just a manifestation, but a revelation of the workings of the mind; therefor I find it absolutely meditative, my practice is my time to stay calm and connected.

JCAM: What are you trying to communicate with your art?

MIM: To me art is not just about representing the physical entity of an abstract concept. It is a space where you question, speculate and entice dialogue by using a language of narrative investigation which is not essentially naturalistic in their representation. With my art I try to contest and renegotiate boundaries found in social and political spheres where the underlying thread is an attempt to decipher binary concepts of space. I am essentially a figurative painter; the body as both object and subject has a central place in my work. The organic growth of form, the innermost secrets of their body, be it a human or a bird or an anthropomorphic creature, they all deal with the duality of life and death, conformity and contradiction. Obscurity and identity overlap each other within my work space.

JCAM: Do you have any creative patterns, routines or rituals associated with your art making?

MIM: I start my day quite early in the morning so that I can go to my studio, as I prefer working in day light. Although I doodle and draw images and make rough sketches before starting a new work, I keep changing them often while in the process, until it makes me happy. Before starting a new work I prefer to look at the blank surface, either paper or canvas, for a period of time which varies between a few days to a few minutes.

JCAM: What is your most important artist tool(s) and why?

MIM: Mind, eyes and hands are the most important tools for me, because without their help I am unable to make all those marks on the surface to create visual language. After that come paint, brush, pencil etc.

JCAM: How do you know when a work is finished?

MIM: It is not possible to define a moment when you can say that the work is finished, because it happens quite often that you feel happy and satisfied with whatever you have done so far and you leave the work alone and then you comeback, and find it unfinished. I believe for an artist creative satisfaction is the most illusive thing, and this feeling of dissatisfaction keeps you alive and motivates you to move on to your next work.

JCAM: What new creative medium would you love to pursue?

MIM: I would love to work with video, installation and soft sculpture made with fabric and fiber.

JCAM: What strategies could you share with other artists on how to become successful professionally?

MIM: I do not like to see life in terms of success or failure; to me life is a very interesting journey full of surprises. We should enjoy this journey of constant search and discovery and continue doing meaningful work.

JCAM: What interesting projects are you working on at the moment?

MIM: I am working on upcoming exhibitions at this moment, also preparing for India Art Fair 2024.

JCAM: What are your artistic goals for the future?

MIM: I am not essentially the kind of person who plans for the future a lot. I believe one should focus on the creative process and keep working sincerely, and everything will eventually fall into place.

JCAM: What or who inspires you?

MIM: Apart from visual art; poetry, literature and films inspire me a lot. Films by Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, and Sergei Parajanov are some of the most favorites from a long list. There are so many diverse examples of creative expressions all around the world; it is quite natural for a creative person to become inspired by them.

JCAM: Do you have a favorite – or influential – living artist?

MIM: I think it is impossible to mention any single artist as inspiration, art has a very long history. From pre-historic cave paintings to Greco-Roman art, Egyptian art, or miniature paintings, they all inspire me and amaze me as much as the Renaissance masters or the Modernist artists of the west end of India. There are so many examples of great artists and great works of art around us.

JCAM: What work of art do you wish you owned and why?

MIM: I wish I owned the original illustrated copies of the “Shahnama”, “Hamzanama” and “Razmnama”, because I greatly admire Persian and Mughal School of miniature paintings.

JCAM: Where do you find ideas for your creative work?

MIM: Art, movies, literature are some of the sources from where I find ideas and inspiration for my creativity. Also history and stories around religion interest me a lot. The multiplicative identity of human traits which often coexist within, the ambiguity of the human psyche attracts me immensely.

JCAM: What does being creative mean to you?

MIM: To me, being creative means to be able to create an alternative universe which will be convincing and open enough to be contested and renegotiated. Also to be able to show what is otherwise impossible, to make visible what is by nature invisible.

JCAM: What is the best advice you ever had about how to be more creative?

MIM: That you should follow and work on what you feel is closest to your heart and you will die if you cannot do it.

Contact information:

Social media - https://www.facebook.com/mahjabin.majumdar mahjabin04@gmail.com

Book of Allusion-3