A conversation with Patricia Hakim on color as therapy, painting with bare hands, and finding a style she hasn't found yet
Patricia Hakim is a novelist who didn't expect to become a painter. What follows is a conversation about the difference between writing and painting, the bare hands and bubble wrap she still uses instead of a brush, and the books she'd want someone reading beside each of her paintings.
Translated from a mix of English and French and lightly edited for length and clarity. Nour Almoujabber's lines are marked NA, Patricia Hakim's are marked PH.
On Beginnings
Nour Almoujabber. How did you start painting? Was there a specific moment, or did it creep up on you?
Patricia Hakim. I think I started creating long before I knew I could actually paint. It never crossed my mind, even though creativity has always been part of how I work. I loved decorating, I used to remodel my house every so often, I even did a few exhibitions of dried flower arrangements. But the real beginning was an invitation to a sip and paint evening. I discovered the joy of mixing colors and seeing what they could say for me. So there was a specific moment, and after that, it started creeping up on me on its own. I was hooked, and in no time the dining room had turned into a studio. The living room followed soon after.
NA. What's the first piece of art you remember making? Do you still have it?
PH. Of course I remember it. It was like a burst of emotions, thoughts, and feelings all at once. I played with color using bubble wrap, wooden sticks, even old visiting cards, because back then I didn't know how to hold a paintbrush. A dear friend of mine helped me draw parts of it, drawing and painting are genuinely two different things to me.
NA. Why did you want to experiment with non-brush tools? Do you still use those?
PH. I didn't know how to hold a brush, you actually taught me that, remember? It used to stress me out, and I felt so much freer painting with whatever I could find, even my bare hands. I love the feeling of paint on my fingers. And yes, I still use whatever's around, I call them my “techniques”.
NA. Wait. Is the first painting the one I own?
PH. Yes!
NA. I had no idea. I thought you were a professional painter when you gifted it to me.
The Craft
NA. You're also a novelist. How does that relate to painting?
PH. In my head, it doesn't really relate, unless it all falls under the same umbrella of creative expression. That's a hard question for me. Writing has always come naturally, I've always found it easy to handle words. Color was different, spreading it out, turning it into a canvas, that was new, and I still don't consider myself a painter, more of a beginner. Painting is a passion I discovered late in life. The same way writing carries me outside of time, painting does too, especially when I'm dealing with writer's block for one reason or another. Strangely, I never get blank canvas syndrome. All it takes is mixing a few colors together, and the tone sets itself.
PH. It depends on my state of mind, I think. What I can say with real certainty is that when my mood isn't at its best, it shows up in my words, but never in my canvases, and for a simple reason. When I start a canvas, I let myself get carried away by the colors. I don't plan in advance what I'm going to paint, but as the colors spread across it, a shape starts to emerge, and my mood shifts along with it. A kind of therapy, in its own way. I'm not someone who likes to dwell in the dramatic, so painting has become my medium of choice these days.
PH. Let me try to simplify it. To write, I need to have something interesting and strong to say, and I need to want to share it. To paint, I just need to want to play with color, and let out whatever beautiful emotion has been held back by the weight of everyday life, a weight we carry, not one we chose.
NA. If your paintings were books, which ones would they be? Pick real books someone could read while looking at each piece.
PH. L'Invitée by Simone de Beauvoir, for Flowers of the Abyss. La Mélancolie du Dimanche by Christine Orban, for Violet Murmurs. Le Premier Jour du Reste de Ma Vie by Virginie Grimaldi, for Fulgurant Glows. La Traversée des Temps, Tome 4, La Lumière du Bonheur, by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt, for Scars of Light. And finally, La Belle du Seigneur, by Albert Cohen, for Unbounded Shores.
On Influences and Identity
NA. Which artist, dead, alive, or completely underground, inspires you most?
PH. For her life, her resilience, her suffering, and her passion, Frida Kahlo. If I had to choose one painting, I’d choose The Suicide of Dorothy Hale.
The Suicide of Dorothy Hale (Frida Kahlo, 1938)
PH. For his colors and his landscapes, Claude Monet. Matinée sur la Seine, among many others.
Matinée sur la Seine (Claude Monet, 1897)
PH. For the shapes and the intensity, Gustav Klimt. Golden Tears, among others, my own version of Golden Tears is actually the piece called Evania. I'll admit my artistic education is fairly limited, I never studied art formally. I just loved it, that's all.
Golden Tears (Gustav Klimt, circa 1888)
NA. Is there a specific memory, place, or moment from your life that keeps resurfacing in your work?
PH. I don't know. I keep trying to figure that out, but honestly, I don't know.
NA. How do you want your Arab identity to show up in your art, or do you let it show up however it wants to, without forcing it?
PH. We are our identities. We're shaped by our origins, our background, and it shows in every part of our lives, not only in our art or our writing, but in how we talk, how we dress, how we act socially, all of it. So again, I don't know, exactly, it's just there.
The Layered Questions
NA. If you were a collector walking into your own show, which piece would you buy, and why that one?
PH. Calista, the one with the cyclamens. The layers in the background are the layers every person carries, from their origins, to their wounds, to the life moments that shape a character. At the same time, it's about simplicity, a solitude that's really a solitude of three, because we're never truly alone, and that touch of pink is the hope sitting inside the grey. It's calm, it's serenity, and it's that stretch of freedom.
NA. What's something about being a working artist that people who aren't artists just don't get?
PH. I think it's the notion of time, how it differs from one person to another. By notion of time I mean priorities, obviously. And by priorities I mean the difference between being and appearing to be.
NA. If you had to choose two colors to paint with, and couldn't use any others, which would you pick?
PH. White and blue. And if I'm allowed a third, black. With those two colors you can create an infinite “nuance” of blue which for me reflects the sky, the dream, the life, and the luminosity. Each one means a lot. The sky is the limit, the universe, the sunshine, a new day. Life in itself is made of dreams, hope, and endless tomorrows. I will add the black to create more nuance and touch of sharpness to enhance the blue hues.
Closing and Looking Forward
NA. What's something you're dying to try but haven't yet?
PH. Maybe finding my own style, which I haven't yet, and having my first solo exhibition.
NA. What would your exhibition be like, look like, even smell like? Do you brainstorm titles for it?
PH. The one I'm dreaming of would be a minimalist, zen space. A kind of escape from all the societal noise and everyday stress, even if just for the time it takes to lose yourself in the canvases and the colors. Ideally, it would smell like my own perfume, an individual, free woman, with notes of lavender and gardenia, and a touch of amber. If I have to think of a title, I think I'd go with Sérénité en Couleurs. Serenity in Color.
Prints of Patricia Hakim's work are available now on arabiyon.art.
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