Welcome back to ARTMATTERS: The Podcast for Artists

On this week’s episode I’m joined by Hiba Schahbaz.

Born in Karachi, Pakistan, Hiba Schahbaz trained in traditional Indo-Persian miniature painting at the National College of Arts in Lahore. Her practice spans oil, wood, paper, black tea, and water-based pigments. Schahbaz received an MFA in painting from Pratt Institute and has exhibited internationally since 2002. Recent exhibitions include the FLAG Art Foundation, Almine Rech Paris, the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, and Jeffrey Deitch, as well as a public art commission for Rockefeller Center produced with Art Production Fund. Her current retrospective, Hiba Schahbaz: The Garden, on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, brings together roughly fifteen years of work tracing her evolution from the disciplined traditions of miniature painting to expansive, immersive works.

I sat down with Hiba in her Bushwick loft studio and asked her about the “aha” moment - when a new idea begins to take shape. We also talk about cut-outs and shifting scale, the difference between one-off paintings and a sustained flow state, learning from mistakes, and why she never lets a painting leave the studio before the idea feels fully resolved. We talk materials and process, how Hiba starts a painting, and how she approaches large commissions, museum projects, and multi-panel works differently. Hiba discusses maintaining a daily studio practice and how it shifts with seasonal rhythms, the difficulty and necessity of waiting for ideas to develop, and the importance of physical health in the studio and taking responsibility for one’s body over time. Finally, we talk about avoiding creative burnout through continuous learning, and why Schahbaz believes in committing fully to the path of an artist without a Plan B.

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 host: Isaac Mann
 www.isaacmann.com
 insta: @isaac.mann

 guest: Hiba Schahbaz
 www.hibaschahbaz.com
 insta: @hiba_schahbaz

Thank you as always to ARRN, the Detroit-based artist and instrumentalist, for the music.