November 27, 2019

Meet Kahkashan Ansary of Baroque Davinci Art in Fort Lauderdale

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kahkashan Ansary.

Kahkashan, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
As a timid little Indian girl, I had trouble talking. Not in a ‘difficulty-in-speech’ kind of way but the kind most introverts are familiar with. If someone were to ask me a question, I’d respond in a yes or no fashion, sometimes just nodded my head. As the years went by, the thoughts in my head got louder but I would rarely utter them out loud to myself, let alone anyone else. During my early teens, I stumbled on poetry (during the mandatory English class, of course). One night I sat down and started pouring my heart out and dared to show it to my English teacher a few weeks later. She saw potential and guided me where I needed. Before I knew it, my dad copyrighted them all and compiled them into a book called “Thoughts”. As excited and delighted as I was, I was also petrified. For the first time in my life, people were going to get a glimpse of my mind. Something I had kept hidden from the world ever since I had come to know it. I was daring to speak in a society where women were supposed to speak in hushed tones. A few years passed, I graduated high school and got myself enrolled in a Distance Education program (Saudi Arabia didn’t have Universities for expats and my parents loved me too much to ship me off). Studying and helping my folks with chores had just become a daily routine, my mind never really got quiet though. My father was in the process of setting up a new business, and I was more than happy to help in whatever way I could. The more I dealt with life the harder it got to remain silent. The more enlightened I became as a woman, the more societal injustices got on my nerves. Since I had been silent for so long, I didn’t know how to scream. I needed more than a string of words now, they were simply not enough. I needed to scream in a way I didn’t need my voice but still felt the release and maybe in some way see it as well. The search for that release led me to Paint. I had always been a creative child. Any class that required some form of drawing or poster making was my favorite.

The education system I grew up in, didn’t have the concept of Art Class or Music class, etc. I didn’t know where to even begin. I expressed my desire to paint to my little brother, who spent the next few weeks saving money from his allowance to gift me my first set of paints and a Bob Ross video. That first painting I finished, gave me more happiness than anything I had ever achieved. I painted landscapes as a means to learn colors and techniques and later ventured into Abstract Art. I spent a lot of time in the art supplies aisle of the local bookstore, which happened to be the only one at the time to even carry art supplies and art-related books. That lay the foundation of my passion for art. By the time I finished my bachelor’s degree in business administration, Prince Mohammed Bin Fahd University had opened its doors to expats. I immediately signed up for a second bachelor, this time in Finance. Helping my father with his business while studying got me through the next four years of college. I am a workaholic, I guess I follow my dads’ footsteps a little too much – so I worked on campus as well, as a Teaching Assistant for the English Prep Program and the Department of Economics. As most Indian traditions demand, I had to get married after completing my second degree. It was an arranged marriage.

I was allowed to see the person but wasn’t allowed to talk to him. I got married to a stranger and said hello to him after the wedding reception. It wasn’t a happy marriage though, therefore it didn’t last long. We were separated for a good 80% of the time and I divorced him exactly a year after the wedding day. It wasn’t easy to convince my family, divorce is still taboo where I come from but when I finally told them the reasons, I got nothing but support. The abusive marriage left my body in a state where it had given up. I found myself hospitalized with the doctors not knowing what was wrong with me. I would regain consciousness and see my parents standing over me worried then I would pass out again. I was throwing up blood at one point and well, it wasn’t pretty. I complained to the nurse when I started getting better that I looked horrible and I distinctly remember the nurse asking me to just be grateful that I’m alive. While I was still sick and going in and out of consciousness, I had made a promise to myself that this wasn’t going to be my story. I wasn’t going to be just another number in the domestic abuse fatality statistics. I wasn’t going to be just another Indian girl who grew up in a misogynistic society and got silenced by it forever. It took me about a year to regain my health, not to mention the emotional scars from the ordeal are still in the process of healing. I told my parents I wanted to study fine art in America, and they supported my decision.

My over-protective Dad who always made sure I never went anywhere alone, not even from the door of my house to the car, agreed for me to move to the place where neither he nor I knew anyone. I guess he wanted to see his daughter be lively again and not just breathing, also he was quite sure he had taught me everything I needed to know to live on my own. I applied to a bunch of universities, got accepted in almost all of them but then fell in love with the Nova Southeastern University campus and art program at the Davie Campus and decided to pursue my B.A in Art & Design there. It’s been 3 years since I moved to America in pursuit of my dream to be an artist and starting a new life in a country and city where I didn’t know a soul. I haven’t regretted a moment of it. I volunteered at various art events on and off-campus, eventually got hired as an Operations intern at Art and Soul which opened a lot of doors for me as an artist. I am currently working on murals around town while being a curator for Collective Ventures in Fort Lauderdale and being one of the creatives at a startup called From Heart 2 Art, as well as being an Art Instructor for an after-school program in Davie.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
A smooth road doesn’t take you too far. It was a struggle to convince my folks of my decision to undertake a non-traditional career. America has its way of working, learning those ways was not easy. I have a lot of strangers to Thank for helping me along the way. Where I come from, we don’t pump our gas, the first time I had to fill my car tank up was interesting. It was the tiniest of things to the biggest, I felt like a child entering the world for the first time even though I was 29 when I moved here. The hardest part in some ways was getting out of my shell and becoming a social butterfly. I used to rehearse my order before making a call for home delivery and now I had to step up to absolute strangers and introduce myself and promote my brand to them ( every introverts’ nightmare) I sometimes feel I have a paradoxical personality. I believe Ambivert is the term they use to describe people like me. Anyways, talking to people, networking, establishing myself as an artist and my brand was a slow, steady and painful process. Everyday I doubted myself yet every day I show up. Maybe that’s why I tend to push myself harder. A lot of students, especially art students, don’t realize the importance of networking and putting themselves out there way before graduating. My art professor – Mrs. Kandy Lopez Moreno – always pushed us to go to events and meet people. I’m glad I was one of the few who made a practice of it. The creative industry is all about who you know. There are times when you feel a project is well along the way but then it fizzles into nothing. Coming to terms with that aspect of this line was also difficult.

Please tell us about your work.
I’m an Artist, Curator and Art Consultant. My art brand is called Baroque Davinci Art. I specialize in Abstract Art and Pyrography. I’m quite popular for my Live Art performances and expressionistic artwork. I curate spaces and exhibits and paint murals. I believe every artist is distinct in their ways. My life experiences and story is what sets me apart from the others. The messages I convey in my art are mostly personal and very heartfelt. I talk about life’s struggles as well as mental health issues in my art. I paint portraits if requested but my main interest lies in Abstract works. If my painting moves you or reminds you of something you can relate to then my job is done.

So, what’s next? Any big plans?
I’d like to travel a lot more and use those experiences in my artwork to show the world how we’re all the same with different yet equally difficult life experiences. People in the East think people in the West are very different and vice versa ( yes, still) and I’m hoping to close that gap a little in whatever way I can. I’m experimenting with some concepts and techniques and very excited about the results. I’m hoping to share my new series of works when they’re ready.

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