MUNTHE ART MONDAY: INGRID KHAN
Please introduce yourself and tell us about what you do.
Self-learning artist with a day job and a rather obsessive mind about all things art (fine and decorative) and the natural world, especially birds, which most often feature as my subjects. I took up painting out of discontent with my surroundings, having moved to a place totally devoid of any aesthetic qualities, which is a driving force as good as any, converting something negative to its opposite. I would claim that my character is similar: I vacillate between conflicting personalities - a baroque minimalist, a pointillist who cannot get to the point, a loving misanthrope, a lingering escapist, a shallow archaeologist, an approximate perfectionist, an extraordinary commoner in imperfect symbiosis with the world, a cadavre exquis assembled by a drunken gang of Dadaists, a destructive maker…. the list is endless.
Ingrid is wearing our BENICIO TOP.
Can you name some other female artists that inspires you and explain why they do so?
My brain does not pigeonhole (ha!) like this: male/female, young/old, colored/Caucasian, etc. One does not label male artists as specifically male. I can list many female artists that I admire, but always for skills that are not gender-specific: craft skills, humor, originality, intelligence, grit.
I would name Louise Bourgeois, who showed us that a spider is also a parent, and I like her quirky way of looking at things, imagined or real. Her “I had a flashback of something that never happened,” similar in truth to “Everything you can imagine is real,” quipped by Picasso, is the best approach to art.
What would you like people to notice in your artwork?
A genuine love for the avian models/subjects and for the craft, and a sense of modesty in not
claiming to invent the wheel with every painting but rather being happy for the influences that other painters/life/nature bring to the canvas. To paraphrase Anni Albers: art and birds make me breathe with a different kind of happiness, and to be able to show just that!
Could you explain more about how being a woman has affected your career?
When I was in high school, ages ago, simply wanting to study and pursue a career in art was considered frivolous and a waste of money by my (and many) middle-class parents, so gender was not even an issue. But then, if you feel that there’s something inside you that you want to express, that is an urge that is not easily suppressed. In that respect, I possess the avian intelligence of a pigeon that, no matter how hard you try to eradicate it, will survive, and my joy to create will come back with a vengeance.
As a painter/maker, being a woman does not affect me much because I do not paint with my ovaries, and my subject is not (yet?) the female form. As a painter/viewer, I can be very self-critical, which may be a more feminine attribute perhaps, and that in turn may affect one’s confidence to market oneself. However, none of this can stop me from painting because I am in it for the sheer joy of doing it, and not for any carefully considered career path. Even at my advanced age, I approach the world with a sense of wonder. Having had very easy access to my inner child, I’ve kept my child-like curiosity intact through life. I am keeping the old woman at bay, and painting helps a lot with that.
Could you explain more about how being a woman has affected your career?
Talent is universal and genderless, but opportunity is not. For me, the main challenge has been access to time, that most precious asset. As a mother of three sons, life often demanded other things first. I used to own a textile store in Kungsholmen, with a small atelier in the back. When we moved to India for my husband’s work in 2008, I had to leave it behind and focus on the family. Perhaps that is why my art has found new expressions now that my sons are older. The urge to create never disappeared. It simply waited, nested quietly, until there was room for it to spread its wings again.
Ingrid is wearing our NICOLY OUTERWEAR.
