About Sarmed

About Sarmed

Sarmed Mirza is British-Asian multi-disciplinary artist with a background in film & television.

Not formally trained at an art school he comes very much from ‘outside the box’ and started drawing in middle life in 2018. A voracious reader as a child, his love affair with creativity began early as he started writing and getting published from the age of 11.

A deeply transformative experience through his meditation practice led him to pursue drawing to deepen his observation skills which led to his highly detailed portraits being included in the Scottish Portrait Awards and the Scottish Fine Art Prize exhibition.

Realism to abstraction

Soon after while viewing a painting by Georges Braque in MoMA, he experienced, in his words “an epiphany, a transference, what seemed like someone reaching out through a transdimensional portal of collective consciousness and pulling me onto their side, and suddenly I was awash with feelings of nostalgia, homesickness from another lifetime, a déjà vu of sorts. Even as a young boy I had similar experiences which I had explored through creative writing. And from that day onward it was to be through art.”

Impelled by this synaesthetic encounter his creative expression transmuted from realism to abstraction.

Sources of his inspiration are eclectic, be it films, books, music cross country flying sailplane giders but above all, nurtured by his meditative explorations there is a profound connection with the natural world.

His work is expressive, often abstract, and is emotionally engaged, evincing states of being that are conceived from real-life memories or dreams and sparking a sense of wonder.

Playful curiosity and experimentation are the cornerstones of Sarmed’s art practice. In life as in his art he is joyfully infectious. He and his work “raise our vibration”, help us connect to and celebrate our human condition.

Original reproductions

Dedicated to technical evolution and excellence, his use of paint and then developmental processes in photography deconstruct traditional ideas of ‘the original’ and ‘the reproduction’.

The beauty of colour and pattern emerges through a captivating interplay of process, happenstance, and technique. Meticulously crafted through a series of iterations, incorporating unique stencils and elements sourced from nature, only a select few panels endure after countless discarded attempts.

crafting worlds within without

Conjuring with scale, impasto paint layers, and photography, Sarmed crafts vibrant and surreal environments. In a daring experimentation with oil paint textures and mixtures, he delves into a realm of discovery within his small-scale works. Enigmatic patterns, concealed until magnified, unveil a hidden world – there is always more than meets the eye.

From this exploration of impermanence and flux, Sarmed's work takes shape, evoking a sense of urgency and surface chaos. Yet within this dynamic interplay, a serene tranquillity gradually unfurls within the viewer.

An international citizen, he currently is based in Scotland.