Umbreen Ahmad’s Abstract Art
“I approach art as a safe place, it offers me boundless opportunities to make sense of the chaos around and the thoughts within. A daily practice in self-discovery and an open path to gratitude. ”
— UMBREEN AHMAD
With Sincerity, Oil & Mixed Media on Canvas, 30" x 40"
Umbreen Ahmad is a Muslim-American abstract artist. She grew up in Pakistan and moved to Houston, Texas at a young age. At nineteen, a serendipitous decision led her to start painting. In 2002 new beginnings brought her to Austin, where she continued to paint and started a family. After fifteen years of creative expressions through paint and texture, she participated in her first art show during the West Austin Studio Tour and has continued to show in various art exhibitions since then, including Britt Design Group’s Evening of Art.
Umbreen has a bachelors and a masters in business, but throughout her schooling art was a constant. Sometimes it takes a while to recognize one’s calling but she’s immensely grateful she found home with art. She finds inspiration in nature, the human experience, and the grand adventure we call life. The constant reminder that we are a small speck of creation in a vast, profoundly diverse world that comes in many colors is simultaneously humbling and inspiring. For Umbreen it is also a reminder that regardless of the distance in land, language, and culture, we are all connected by the very simple, yet powerful emotions we all feel, no matter how big an ocean or barrier stands between us. Abstract expression allows her to illustrate just this. She leans on colors and texture using oils and mixed media to honor the highs and lows of diverse emotions that are sometimes hers and others she stands witness to. For her, creating unveils the path to inner peace and power that allows her the ability to pay it forward and honor and invoke the audacity of hope and action. She is elated to call Austin her home, a city alive with color, culture, compassion, and those much-needed vibes helping us Keep Austin Weird. She credits her children, family, and her tribe of friends for many things, but more so for motivating her, in her art and other adventures in life.
Artist’s Statement
I approach art as a safe place, it offers me boundless opportunities to make sense of the chaos around and the thoughts within. A daily practice in self-discovery and an open path to gratitude. I lean on the vibrancy of colors, softness of blending and dimensionality of texture and visible strokes to express and invoke emotions. I rely on oils, acrylics, and inks just to name a few mediums and hope that these unassuming strokes provoke you, calm you or intrigue you. Each creation cradles words embedded within the paint, sometimes hidden, other times exposed. The inscriptions capture my hopes or well wishes, written mostly in Urdu, my native language. For me art is a form of self-expression that extends into mediation allowing me to navigate the maze of life into a space of harmony and find ways to cherish moments and memories that are several shades of life, yet through art infinitely peaceful.
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