Hamza Shah Mian

Meet The Artist:

Hamza Shah Mian

17 August 2026

Meet The Artist:

Hamza Shah Mian

17 August 2026

Q: You use natural materials: tree extracts, organic pigments, with a palette drawn from your Afghan roots. How do you choose what a painting needs, and does the material ever tell you something the idea didn't?  

A: Choosing a material is less about control and more about listening. Using organic pigments means working with substances that have their own life, history, and physical memory.  

The idea for a piece is usually just an entrance. Once the organic pigments touch the surface, the material takes over. natural extracts don't sit passively on a canvas; they soak, bleed, and age unpredictably. They insist on their own timeline. it carries a tactile connection to memory, daily ritual, and domestic space, grounding the work in something living and ancestral.

Q: You work with both music and painting. How do these two practices influence each other?  

A: For me, painting and sound are two modes of translating the same frequency. Painting is quiet, but it possesses rhythm, tempo, and resonance. Sound is invisible but textural and spatial. The visual layers of painting helps me conceptualize sound as something with weight, atmosphere.  

They aren't separate disciplines; they are two ways of listening to and shaping space. 

Q: Fasting is part of your creative ritual. What does that deprivation do to the work, and what does it ask of you?  

A: I don’t see fasting as deprivation, but as path fo quietness , by clearing away of physical noise to sharpen internal perception.  

When you fast, the body's focus shifts. The boundary between the physical self and the surrounding becomes thinner. Your body's energy is not used for digestion. so all you attention and energy goes to the painting. You don't have the energy for hesitation, every mark or gesture becomes essential.

"It asks for absolute honesty, clarity, and presence, forcing the work to come from a place of essential truth rather than habit or excess influenced by consumption."

Q: You're very sensitive to space and atmosphere. How do you approach creating an exhibition environment?  

A: An exhibition shouldn't just be a wall where objects hang; it needs to be an immersive, living sanctuary. I approach a space the same way I approach my home. The goal is to build an environment that shifts the viewer’s internal pace the moment they walk through the door, inviting a state of presence, reflection, and quiet gratitude.

Q: Which artist has influenced and informed your vision the most and why? 

A: My vision is shaped by both contemporary encounters and historical masters. On a personal level, Sophus gave me my first glimpse into the raw potential of painting with earth tones.  

Beyond that initial spark, I find myself deeply influenced by Pierre Soulages, specifically his early works in brou de noix . he used this raw, organic dye to construct light, warmth, through natural transparencies. Alongside Yun Hyong-keun’s modesty and use of diluted earth tones soaking into raw canvas, they taught me that true emotional depth comes from reduction letting organic materials and the support breathe together as a living sanctuary. Both artists demonstrate that true emotional resonance comes from reduction using raw, honest materials to create a sanctuary of stillness.

Q: What does the city give artists that other cities don't, and what is it still missing?  

A: Berlin offers space, time, and a unique freedom from rigid artistic limitations. It has a raw, layered history that allows for experiment, cross disciplinary collaboration, and room to build a practice at your own pace without immediate commercial pressure.   

At times, it can lack a connection to warmth, organic light, and natural stillness. Because the city is so gritty and industrial, as an artist you often have to manually cultivate your own sense of quiet, warmth, and organic grounding within your studio to counter the surrounding urban concrete.