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Samir Mahmood

ranasamir.com
ranasamir.com
About the member

I am a Galway-based visual artist with a BA in Contemporary Art Practices degree. I am recipient of the Academic Achievement and the inaugural Mary Lavelle Burke Bursary Awards at GMIT Mayo (2020). I worked as a medical doctor in Pakistan before moving to Ireland and completed my PhD in Health Promotion from NUI Galway in 2014. In early 2021 I secured funding to pilot an Augmented Reality based project in a public space in Galway County through Artist Support Grant. Later I also received Agility Award from the Arts Council to develop a prototype for a Virtual Reality project. I am also part of a group of four Sample-Studios Cork artists who received funding from for a forthcoming exhibition ‘Braid’ based on cross-cultural collaboration.

Exhibitions
  • 2022 – Heinrich Böll Cottage, Dugort, Achill for anniversary celebrations (Forthcoming)
  • 2022 – ‘Braid’ artist collective exhibition Sample Studios Cork in September 2022
    (Forthcoming)
  • Past 2021 – Sample-Studios Members’ Winter Exhibition
  • 2021 – Indo-Persian Traditional Miniature Painting Exhibition, Culture Night, Cork County
  • 2020 – Contemporary Irish Arts Center Los Angeles (CIACLA) Online Programme
  • 2020 – Re-Root eExhibition Embassy of Pakistan, Dublin
  • 2018 – Lost and Found Galway Arts Centre, Ireland
  • 2018 – Beyond – 11th Annual Members’ show, 126 Artist-run-Gallery, Galway, Ireland
  • 2018 – K-FEST Group exhibition June 2018 at Killorglin, Ireland
  • 2017 – B D G R L (Bad Girl) Group exhibition 126 Artist-run-Gallery, Galway, Ireland
  • 2016 – ‘Metamorphosis’ Group exhibition 126 Artist-run-Gallery, Galway, Ireland
Residency
  • 2021 – Heinrich Böll Cottage, Dugort, Achill
  • 2015 /16 Resident studio tenant 126 Artist-run-Gallery, Galway, Ireland

Samir
Mahmood

The ideas for my practice come from research on experiences of migration, citizenship, identity and spirituality. I focus on themes of body, transformation, transcendence and cultures surrounding queer existence. My art practice borders between planned and spontaneous. The work produced through this engagement comprise of digital photo-collages, painting, objects, video and recently mixed reality. The Indo-Persian miniature paintings done on Wasli insert the queer male body into the traditional narratives of Mughal and Raj era art. These themes in my paintings queer the grammar of patriarchal homophobic society. These also indicate an act of disobedience through depiction of a naked male body in the genre of manuscript art.

Samir Mahmood
Metamorphia I, 25.4 x 20.3 x 1.8 cm (10 x 8 x 0.7 in) Paper collage and ink on panel
2020
Samir Mahmood
Metamorphia II, 40 x 30 x 4 cm (15.7 x 11.8 x 1.5 cm) Photo image transfer and acrylic on panel
2020
Samir Mahmood
Permeation, 45 x 32 cm (17.72 x 12.6 inches), unframed Gouache and dry pigment colour on handmade archival Wasli paper
2021