Artist Bio

 

Samiir Saunders is a visual artist, writer and filmmaker from Birmingham. He uses various media to illustrate themes of language, context, identity and fragmentation. Samiir’s drawings are often identifiable by his distinctive recurring contour line motif.

 

Samiir is a recent graduate of Falmouth University’s BA Drawing course. Upon returning to Birmingham, he participated in Gallery 37, wherein he wrote and directed ‘The Fine Comb’, a short film adaptation of the poem ‘Do Not Touch My Hair’ by Esther Ogunfeitimi. The film combines spoken word poetry with horror filmmaking to emotively tackle themes of memory, cultural identity and Britain’s colonial legacy, through the lens of one woman’s relationship with her Afro hair.

Most recently, Samiir exhibited his drawings and poetry at Artefact Gallery in Birmingham. The exhibition, titled ‘space/meaning’, was his first solo show, and functioned to further explore his obsession with the movement and transmutation of information in the digital age.

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Artist Statement

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I am fascinated by the information which is lost when a process repeats, or an idea is taken out of context. In my ongoing practice, I work by iterating words and marks through a variety of digital and manual processes which include; drawing, photocopying, collage, printmaking, coding and predictive text generation. This creates a feedback loop between maker and medium, which results in a rhythmic ebb and flow of ideas. The work becomes a collage of intentional and accidental mark making – linked together by a loose narrative of mutation.

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Email: smaiduskhan@gmail.com

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Website: https://www.instagram.com/smaiduskhan/

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