Today we’d like to introduce you to Muthulakshmi Narasimhan.
Hi Muthulakshmi, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
All my life, I’ve been an artist. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been painting. It’s helped me combat trauma, insecurities, and stress. But it hasn’t been a short road to becoming a full-time artist. I started off as a computer scientist in college, actually, and found it not to my liking. Not because the subject matter was difficult, but for my creative brain dull and not artistically motivating.
So after a year of being uninspired, I changed my major to studio art. Studying art teaches you that art is hard work and that it requires as much discipline as other areas of study. But then graduation loomed and the world often tells us artists that we won’t survive in the real world. That what we learned is useless and unmarketable. After working in the corporate world for many years, I can say this is not true. Art has truly been the most valuable thing I have ever studied. So much that I quit my job in January 2020 to become a full-time artist.
After the pandemic hit, I sat down to think of where I wanted to do with my art. And if I still wanted to continue doing art even though I had just started. I realized I wanted to tell stories of people around the world through my art and that it was my calling. Pandemic or no pandemic, it is my life’s mission to tell our stories through my art, and that is what I strive to do today.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Firstly, it has not been a smooth ride. While I studied art for four years, I think I was underprepared for being on my own because I saw it first as being an artist. But the truth is you’re not just an artist you’re a business, and you have to accept that fact and then act like it. The pandemic closed a lot of avenues that artists traditionally rely on but that just meant that I had to learn to innovate.
Galleries were closed for a long time and art fairs were canceled. Places that hung my work were closed (restaurants and offices), but people were sitting inside their homes and they needed beauty around them too. So that meant that I had to change the way I view how to market my art and that has been a big lesson for me.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I paint everything, landscapes, still lifes, and figures. But I am most in love with people/figures. To me, there is a touch of personalization and commonality I don’t feel with say a landscape. My art is very diverse in that I explore every culture I can (in the limited time there is)and try to do justice by them.
I find people have fascinating stories to tell that I love to bring to the world. Human stories are as rich and diverse as the history of humanity itself And that is why I want to tell the world our stories. I want to show the world how our trials and tribulations are both unique and common. In art, everything is beautiful and everything deserves to be told. I take inspiration from the colors and people and seek to tell the world their stories as much as I can through my paintings, whether it is children playing or the bond between a grandmother and granddaughter, they are all things we can relate to.
My art tends to meld my two loves: Color and people. Colors portray all our emotions to me and I try to tell the stories of the people I paint by incorporating beautiful colors as much as I can.
And that is also what I am most proud of: That I tell the stories of people whose stories are not often told, and I try to do it in a way that does them justice and seeks to spotlight the beauty of the people and culture I am painting.
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
I think all artists are risk-takers because sometimes all we have is our belief that we can make it. I quit my job to be an artist full time and it definitely is a risk. But as you grow and as you get better at what you do, it’s less of a risk.
The learning curve has been steep but if you are committed it becomes more of a puzzle than risk because you understand how to walk the path ahead.
Pricing:
- 9 x 12 inches $400
- 8 x 10 inches $350
- 11 x 14 inches $700
- 12 x 16 inches $1200
- I offer 20% discount to everyone who signs up for my newsletter.
Contact Info:
- Email: artbylakshmi@gmail.com
- Website: https://www.artlakshmi.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/art_by_lakshmi/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/artbylakshmi216
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/art_by_lakshmi
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUmT_RpLtlD13MW2c8HSLvQ
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/artbylakshmi-artbylakshmi
Image Credits
Muthulakshmi Anu Narasimhan
