Art studio major exhibits creativity through paper
Most of us usually don’t think of paper cut-outs as the first way to make art, but for second-year art studio major Ali Bhimani, it’s his primary medium. The use of paper throughout his artworks wasn’t the result of some purposeful, genius brainchild, but rather of laziness.
“It started off as me being lazy because one of the prompts for my [art] class was to use patterned repetition in a work, but I didn’t want to draw and paint the person everytime, so I drew him once, cut him out and used a stencil, and my teacher was like ‘that’s a very unique style of doing it,’ so through laziness brews creativity,” Bhimani said.
Bhimani has done art throughout his childhood but didn’t begin to consider it as a career path seriously until his senior year of high school, when his work was featured in the Knoxville Museum of Art.
“I was taking AP studio just to get some art credit, [my teacher] submitted my art to a museum and it was featured,” Bhimani said. “So I was like, maybe I have a chance to do something I like instead of business, which seemed too easy to me.”
From very early on, Bhimani drew inspiration from human life forms and continues to focus his artwork on this aspect.
“When I used to draw as a kid or if I had any art classes I would always draw eyes and hands,” he said. “I’m very obsessed with hands and the functionality [of them]; there’s so much we can do with our appendages, and it’s fascinating to me.”
Bhimani is also inspired by other artists, like Bansky, who push their audiences to address the political climate.
“There’s no copyright issue in artistry. It’s impossible to copy someone because your work takes its own path. If I’m making a sculpture, it is going to start off some way in my mind, but by the time I’m done the sculpture’s taken its own path and the idea has gone into the work and it is for others to see,” Bhimani said.
As for his future in the art field, Bhimani hopes to become an art professor and inspire others to take on artistic career paths. This past summer, Bhimani was the head counselor for an art camp, called Camp Mosaic, that hosted 120 participants in Seattle.
“That’s one of the most rewarding [experiences], inspiring kids to pursue art because it’s looked so down upon as a career path,” Bhimani said. “But there’s always going to be someone out there who enjoys what you enjoy so don’t hesitate to do what you want to do. Unless you’re a psychopath.”
Bhimani, although purposeful in his artwork, does not aim to push any specific meaning on his audiences.
“I want to quote Pablo Picasso, he says ‘art is a lie that leads to the truth.’ So no piece of art has any meaning; it could be a blank wall that’s sold for billions of dollars or it could be the most complicated, intricate clockwise structure that takes years and years to finish that sells for nothing,” Bhimani said. “It’s the person that walks up to that painting that gives it meaning.”
To view more of Bhimani’s artwork, students and others can visit his website at alibhimani786.portfoliobox.net.
Written by: Abigail Wang — arts@theaggie.org
