Saman Qadir

My name is Saman Qadir and I’m a Pakistani-American painter and photographer. I was born and raised in the Bay Area and feel like this whole area has a special place in my heart and I try to show that through my pieces. It’s important for me to connect my Pakistani heritage to my American one. I would say I’m a multicultural, abstract artist. I feel like I never really had that love and representation shown and so I want to be that representative and know that people from all over can feel and connect to what I put out.

What does "liberation" mean to you?

Liberation is the freedom of individuals that have been unjustly targeted based on the color or their skin, sexual preference, religion or what country they are from. It’s the idea that people from all walks of life stand strongly together. It unifies causes. Liberation sounds like us coming together. You can feel the love and understanding that we are all one and the more we unpack our biases towards one another, we can create real change.

Is your creative practice one of liberation?

My creative practice is me taking in all the information I’ve learned from books, social media, and videos. I take it all in and start visualizing a message that I want to share with people. Creating art is pivotal to my healing process and how I choose to show love and support for certain causes that touch my heart.

How can art be a tool in the revolution?

Art is at the forefront of any revolution. It’s visuals that are on the minds of the masses. Us creating all that we do is to remind our community to stay strong and keep pushing for change to come. Art plants the seed for the revolutions to germinate into the minds and grow out into our community and if your art is really good, it echoes out into the world.

Share a little bit about your creative process!

It’s me spending a lot of my time alone in my space. I read, listen to podcasts, and watch videos. Just really researching about the subject as best as I can so when I speak on it, it’s from a well informed place. I’m interested in so many different things and art has been a great way to show it to people.

Any other reflections you'd like to share?

Keep talking about this, creating art, posting photos, helping out our communities during this pandemic.

@TheSamaniist