Salman Soofi | Artwork

I’ve always felt it in my fingers and in my toes that I can paint. I had had this feeling for several years and one fine day I decided to start. Surprisingly I’ve chosen expressionism to be my core style which is eventually the best medium to transfer my ideas and philosophies to the canvas. My journey started like Marco Polo’s When I left my country at the age of seven. Wandering around different parts of the world I was actually learning about different cultures and art. Every stone, pebble and flower inspired me.

I consider myself as a divine artist, most of the paintings are not planned the way they appear now as final artworks. There are many which are buried under them because some canvases are used several times. The faces appear unintentionally most of the time in my paintings and many ideas and concepts are simultaneously running in my mind when I start a new artwork. Sometimes I could finish a painting in an hour or two and sometimes it takes several hours and days. I start with one concept and end up doing a totally different one. The process takes me into a sort of trance, I am usually in a state of passion where thoughts and ideas melt within my soul and transform into figures and shapes. This state of transformation is so out of control that most of the times I leave the brush and start painting with my hands.

Most of my paintings address social issues like starvation, alcoholism or anguish of wars.I also try to bring harmony depicting nature, glimpses of natural elements in a minimalistic style. There is so much beauty in this world, we just need to open our internal eyes to it. Like a famous writer once expressed “the seeing people don’t see”.

If I need to describe my work in one line I would say that “I unintentionally peek into my subconscious to transfer the divine messages on the canvas.”