Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Javaid. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Javaid, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
I didn’t go to art school, have any training in painting or anything. I started out as an artist by experimenting with collage, mostly because I was deathly afraid of painting. Over time I asked a lot of questions about both collage and paint, to artists, people who worked in art supply stores, anybody who would listen. Also galleries and museums became my art school, I learned a lot just by seeing how other artists did things. I then slowly started incorporating paint elements into collage until I felt more comfortable with the painting process. For me curiosity has been the most essential part of my learning process, I am always going to be a student when it comes to art and making it.
Javaid, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I am pretty new to being an artist, as I first started making art about 5 or 6 years ago and have been a practicing lawyer for quite a while before that. The impetus for making art began after my father got sick a while back. During that time, watching his condition worsen, I started to think about the fragility of life and the need to make the most of life while you can. Also during this time I was traveling a lot for work and going to galleries and museums became my thing to do in a new town. So along with the feelings of grief and despair I felt from my father’s situation, I started to get my own ideas of art I wanted to see.
As I was going to these galleries and museums I noticed a lack of representational art from South Asian and particularly South Asian-American artists. If I did see work from a South Asian artist, they usually were born and raised in the Indian Subcontinent (India, Pakistan Bangladesh etc.) which is a very different lived experience from mine growing up in Queens in New York City.
In addition to the Pakistani influence from my parents’ culture, I was also heavily influenced by the cultures of skateboarding, punk rock, hip hop and graffiti that I grew up with. The desire to see a reflection of all these cultural influences, kind of smashed together, is what pushed me to create the art I make today.
I also consistently draw on the Do It Yourself (DIY) spirit of punk rock in my work to figure out whatever I need to know to make things happen, even if I don’t have the academic training for it. I like to challenge myself with each new work and raise the bar every time. If I don’t know how to do something technically, I trust that DIY spirit will get me there in the end.
Looking back at the relatively short time I’ve been making work, I’m really proud to have had 2 solo shows to help tell my story and a MacDowell Fellowship and Residency last year, which was a life changing experience for my art practice and perspective.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
For me the most rewarding thing about being an artist is the ability to take an idea of something that doesn’t exist and translate it into reality. A lot of times the original idea I have for a painting is completely different than what it looks like at the end, but that journey of following an idea as it twists and turns from nothing into something on the canvas is the most fun.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
One lesson I had to unlearn is that just because you don’t know how to do something, it shouldn’t stop you from doing it! For years I didn’t paint a full canvas because I thought I didn’t know how to do it and I would mess it up. I’ve been listening to Rick Rubin’s Tetragrammaton podcasts (which are great) and one thing he says is if somebody asks you if you can do something but you don’t know how, you should say “I haven’t done it yet”. I think that’s a great motto, being open to trying new things, having faith in yourself and not closing off new and potentially rewarding experiences.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.jnayyarart.com
- Instagram: @jnayyarart
