22 Mar 2025
We navigate the textures of upbringing, emotion, and artistic independence.
We first encountered Marium at the Slade MA Degree Show, where her work pulled us in from across the room. At the time, we didn’t know the kind of presence she carried, or the stories she’d later share with us over coffee in a Paddington café—we only knew that something in us was screaming to speak to the artist whose work had just captured our hearts.
From mother’s studio to boiler-suit rituals, Marium M Habib takes us through the organic chaos, inherited rhythms, and intuitive drive behind her painting practice. In this deeply personal conversation with us, we navigate the textures of upbringing, emotion, and artistic independence.
Zehra: What's your earliest memory engaging in art and what made you want to pursue this career?
Marium: I think everyone paints and draws as a kid, right? It’s almost instinctive—someone gives you crayons, and that’s how it begins. The difference, I guess, is that some of us never stop. I honestly don’t have a memory of not painting. But I do remember being around 13 and suddenly realising I hadn’t painted in a while—that stuck with me.
My mum’s an artist. When I was younger, her studio was just across from my bedroom. I wasn’t allowed to touch anything, but I was always watching. She didn’t go to art school—had to do business or something like that—but she was learning and evolving during my childhood. She did a lot of life drawing back then, and I think I picked that up from her. There’s something very formative about growing up with an artist as a parent. You absorb it, intentionally or not.
Zehra: Do you think your mind works differently as an artist? Do you think artists view the world differently?
Marium: That’s a tricky one. I don’t know if I think differently because I’m an artist or if I make art because I think differently. What I do know is that my way of thinking is deeply intuitive. My mum is more technical—she researches, she studies methodically. I tend to let things emerge. I’ve leaned into intuition more and more over time.
Being an artist is about making decisions without direction. There’s a kind of freedom in that—no rules, no purpose other than creation. But it’s also terrifying. The blank canvas really is a scary thing. Sometimes I think, this is all I can do. If I broke my hand, what would I even do with my life?
Zehra: I can always feel it in a piece—when it’s made with spontaneity versus something tightly planned. There’s an emotional rawness that comes through.
Marium: Exactly. Sometimes highly technical work feels alienating, even if it's beautiful. It becomes more about skill than feeling. I don’t want my work to be didactic or neat. When I don’t know what I’m painting, when I’m asking a question instead of giving an answer—that’s when it becomes interesting.
Michael Armitage once saw my work and asked, “Do you do preparatory drawings?” And I said, “I hate drawing.” He looked at me like I’d sworn in church. He said I was relying too much on line because I was doing all my drawing on the canvas. He wasn’t wrong. But also, it’s part of how I think—let it come out and figure it out later. It’s raw, and sometimes you have to embrace the raw.
Zehra: What's your process like on a day when you're making art?
Marium: Depends on the day. I get to the studio—whenever that happens—change into my boiler suit (because painting clothes get grimy real quick), and then just feel out what stage I’m at.
If I have an idea, I dive in. If not, I might stretch a canvas, sketch, dig through images—just get into the zone. If I’m mid-painting, it’s headphones on, Wine Gums in hand, techno blasting. You kind of have to manufacture that zone when you’re under pressure. Especially in a shared studio—headphones help keep you in your bubble.
Zehra: Do you ever watch or listen to anything while painting?
Marium: Rarely watch. I’ve comfort-watched sitcoms, but that’s not often. Usually it’s music. If I’m under pressure, it’s full-on techno. Painting big is physical—it’s like dancing, really. I don’t like sitting down to paint. If the scale is small, sure, but otherwise, I prefer moving my whole body.
When I was working in Karachi, I had this massive board on the floor. It was so heavy, I had to squat to paint the bottom half. My legs would die. But that’s part of it—the body becomes part of the work.
Zehra: Did you study art in school? Were you always sure this was it?
Marium: I did art at GCSE and A-level, yeah. And I’ve always said I wanted to be an artist, probably because my mum was one. For a while, I got self-conscious about that and pretended I wanted to do other things, but that didn’t stick.
I even went to a liberal arts college in the US at first—tried doing other subjects. But I just couldn’t sit through those classes. My body rejected it. I can’t do anything else. This is it.
Zehra: That’s such a specific kind of knowing. But it also comes with pressure, right?
Marium: So much pressure. Every time I have wrist pain or eye strain, I spiral. I think, “This is it. If I lose this, I have nothing else.” I recently got glasses and felt like it was the end of the world—but also, good frames can literally make your career. (laughs)
Zehra: Do you still work on the floor sometimes?
Marium: Yeah. I mean, it’s very South Asian to work on the floor, right? My mum’s doing miniature painting now, and with that, you have to work close-up, often on the ground. When I came to London, everyone was using easels or walls. They were shocked I wanted to sit on the floor. It’s a different relationship to the work.
Zehra: What keeps you coming back to painting, emotionally?
Marium: Vulnerability. That feeling of navigating through uncertainty. It’s less about arriving somewhere and more about the movement. It’s a question, not a statement. And I think that makes the painting feel more alive.
Zehra: Anything you’d like to say to your past self?
Marium: Keep painting. You don’t need to know where it’s going.
Zehra: Who’s your biggest inspiration?
Marium: There’ve been many over the years—so many, actually. I love that quote by Philip Guston: “When you're in the studio, there are many ghosts.” That’s exactly it. You're never really alone when you're working. But if I had to name the most omnipotent ghost? Paula Rego. She’s always there, whether I want her to be or not. In undergrad, a friend saw my work and said, “This is so Paula Rego.” At the time I hated that—didn’t want to be derivative—but I can’t run from her.
Her work is so deeply psychological, and I related to her life story too—coming from Portugal, dealing with patriarchy, arriving at the Slade. That school was a dream because of her. I cried when she died. I never wanted to meet her, because I knew she was kind of mad, but her work? Unbelievable.
Zehra: Who else has shaped your visual universe?
Marium: Gauguin. For the darkness. Amrita Sher-Gil—because as a brown girl, how can you not? Her self-portraits are everything. But what’s interesting is not just the admiration but the moral ambiguity. I’ve thought a lot about this—how to paint without a clean moral stance. Amrita’s self-portrait and Gauguin’s Tahitian works both hold a kind of complicity. Michael Armitage and I once spoke about this—he asked, “What’s a moral painting?” He said all paintings are morally ambiguous. And I agree. That grey area is where the real tension lies.
These days, though, I’m having a full-blown love affair with Edvard Munch. I’ve even been making memes of his work! His compositions, his mood—they’re just so lyrical. But I had a tutor once warn me I was looking at him too much. It’s a fine line, right? Admiration vs. imitation.
Zehra: That influence must creep in without even realising. Do you think Instagram has changed how you and other artists process that?
Marium: Definitely. Everyone’s a bit obsessed with being “original,” but let’s be real—no art is completely original. Instagram makes that even more complicated. There’s constant exposure. Everyone’s posting work 24/7, and whether you like it or not, it influences you. It defines what's trendy.
Instagram can be affirming—it makes visibility feel possible—but also deeply demoralising. You spend years on a painting and find 100 better versions of it scrolling through Pinterest. Galleries now demand exclusivity. I once worked with a gallery that said, “We don’t want anything you’ve already uploaded.” They literally made me archive a post. That felt gross. Like, if people have seen the image, they won’t want to see the painting? It’s so backwards.
Zehra: And yet we’re all still in the game.
Marium: Exactly. I hate how Instagram affects my process. I find myself checking how a painting looks on my phone constantly. That little screen becomes part of how I assess my work. It’s not just documentation—it’s how I think now.
I even hold my paintings up to mirrors to see them differently. That came from my Karachi studio days. The mirror and the phone have become tools. I’ve grown weirdly dependent on digital crutches—like using my iPad to figure out color blending. And it’s scary. I think, why can’t my eyes just do this?
Painting from life is something I’ve had to return to. Especially with a painter mother and all this technical baggage. Still life teaches you how to see. You’re not looking at pixels; you’re looking at light bouncing off fabric or skin or nylon. That’s real color. That’s real observation. And there’s something joyful and grounding in just painting fruit—Frida Kahlo’s fruit paintings, or Dali’s bread—it’s not just still life. It’s loaded.
Zehra: What do you think of art school, looking back?
Marium: I’ve mentioned it probably five times already—but art school has been everything. I did some of my undergrad in the U.S., where it was all technical. You learned how to build stretcher bars, mix color, that sort of thing. Then I came here to Wimbledon, and it was completely different. No one teaches skills; they teach you how to think. It’s been about validating ideas, pushing thought.
Also, your peer group matters so much. So many ideas come just from talking—tutorials, critiques, even casual conversations. And I do rate the PPD (Personal Professional Development) course. A lot of schools miss that. But at UAL, even with all its issues, it gave me those formal tools—how to present your work, how to act like you care. And you need that. Especially when you enter with an 18-year-old ego thinking you’ll rule the world. (laughs)
Zehra: What’s changed the most in your practice?
Marium: Showing the work. Putting it into the world. When you make work in a vacuum, it can get stagnant. Exhibiting it punctuates your thinking. You get feedback. You see how others read your paintings—and that ends up shaping your next steps. I think the practice is constantly shifting, and audience perception is part of that.
We wrapped up our conversation with a sense of shared diaspora longing, artistic entanglements, and the vivid power of process. Like many artists of Asian descent, Marium M Habib speaks from the space between worlds—finding inspiration in the homeland but shaping it into something expansive, personal, and profoundly contemporary.
Zehra: Okay, last one—what does “yaar” mean to you?
Marium: Yaar. It’s everything, isn’t it? Friend, companion, beloved, confidant. It’s the person who makes you laugh mid-breakdown. It’s what I’d call painting on a good day. It’s what I hope my art can be for someone else. A quiet yaar in the room.
Follow Marium on Instagram @mariumbob_studio to keep up with her work.