Today we’d like to introduce you to Maryam Dabboussi.
Maryam, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I’m an artist and interior designer here in Los Angeles. I grew up in Dubai (with some time in Nice and Singapore), went to Paris to study painting and then decided to move to California after I lived through my first European winter. I never thought I would live in the US full time but after my first visit to LA I was hooked and I’ve been here ever since.
I loved having the encouragement and freedom to pursue painting from my mother especially, we used to do watercolors together and she’s a very talented artist. My grandmother paints too so I feel like we have this great generational love for it.
Cy Twombly’s work has my whole heart. All of my inspiration for my work comes from feelings and his pieces capture something so special. Sometimes I’ll go to the Broad and just hang out in front of The Rose. Most of my other inspiration comes from experiences and people and poetry.
When I started doing collages it felt like the most natural thing; it felt like meditating. People are collages, too, made up of experiences and thoughts and desires which is another reason why I love it. It’s just the way my mind works, even when I’m designing a room or home for someone, that’s a collage of furniture and paint and art.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It was hard being so far away from my family, but I learned so much from moving to a foreign country at 18. It was like learning how to swim by jumping into the water (which actually might be how I learned to swim…)
We’d love to hear more about your art.
I freelance for interior design and spend the rest of my time painting; I’ll do mini collections from one train of thought and sometimes a large scale commissioned piece or something random, it really depends on my mood. I remember when I was younger I really struggled sometimes as an artist; my art teacher really pushed me.
She would say, “I know your heart isn’t in this. What should you be doing?”. I wasn’t a portrait painter or charcoal artist, I existed in the space that I could occupy with what was inside my mind– huge, saturated brush strokes. When I tried applying my synesthesia in my work I remember everything clicking; now when I get ‘painter’s block’ I can put on a new song or have my brother (a very talented musician, thankfully) send me a snippet to get my brain in that zone.
I’ll be featured in an exhibition at ACCA Gallery, here’s a link https://www.artinla.us/ with info about the showing which runs from 2/14-2/16.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I would have done things my way from the start, even when I thought it wasn’t perfect.
Contact Info:
- Website: maryamdabboussi.com
- Email: [email protected]
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