We were lucky to catch up with Tania Qurashi recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Tania thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

When I was a child, I used to draw after school in a small room in my parents’ convenience store in South Jersey. Throughout my childhood and adolescence, I looked forward to the art lessons in school and continued drawing at home. By the time I was in high school, my mom enrolled me in a local after-school art program where I honed my skills and began to build a portfolio to apply to art colleges and universities. I knew I wanted to pursue an artistic path toward the end of high school when I didn’t see other options to live a fulfilling and creative life. It seemed like the only path that could save me. Once I started my studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, being an artist became much more attainable as I learned more skills and techniques as a painter. A few years later, I finished my graduate studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and learned from professors, mentors, and visiting artists that a life in the arts was possible and could be sustainable. I believe that I was always going to be an artist, one way or another. When I reflect on my journey so far, I have become the artist I wanted to be since I was a child.

Tania, 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 an artist based between Philadephia and South Jersey. I paint works on paper and panels that explore the cultural and racial melancholy of my identity as the daughter of immigrants from Pakistan and Guatemala. Primarily through paintings and drawings, I render objects, vessels, portraits, and symbols from my parents’ homelands to reconcile with multiple histories and heritages. I am interested in the distances between one and the other and that objects can hold our longings. The objects are paired with flowers from both real and imagined gardens against a black surface. The objects and flowers are cultural identifiers that exist in an undefined black void to express a visual melancholy and isolation of a bi-racial experience. In my work, I am concerned with the relationship between the Pakistani, Guatemalan, and American cultures and how it is complicated by subjective experience. Throughout my artistic journey, I am proud of the continued opportunities to learn from other artists, mentors, and educators. I continue to learn so much about what is possible about being an artist and the potential to take my work further.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

One of the most rewarding aspects of being an artist is expressing myself through art and sharing it with those who resonate with the work. Making art allows me to contemplate my experiences, emotions, and existence and find a sense of belonging when others can find meaning in the work. I can access so many parts of art history, culture, and artmaking traditions due to my identity as a Pakistani-Guatemalan American, another rewarding aspect of being an artist that makes being an artist a life-long journey.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong and The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Qureshi have significantly impacted my thinking as an artist. These books have some similarities in the way that they portray a melancholic coming of age story about a young person of color navigating family, friendship, culture, sexuality, and mental health. These books allowed me to think of the multiple and fragmented identities that define an individual while allowing space for imagination and fiction to complicate our lives. I consider my work to be a composition of exchanges between cultures and generations, as well as channels to explore the romantic, religious, personal, and political. However, there are always moments of fiction that enter my artwork as a means to seek connection and narrative. After reading these two novels, my work has altered in significant ways to consider the paintings as self-portraits and to title the works in more poetic ways.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.taniaqurashi.com
• Instagram: @tania.qurashi