Sarmed is a multidisciplinary British-Asian artist based in Glasgow, working across painting, film, and drawing. Found My Way Home is part of his Leaves in Love series, exploring nature, memory, and healing through richly textured colour fields, inspired by deep meditation. The work draws from the landscapes of Balquhidder, Scotland, and Butchart Gardens, Canada, where Mirza experienced emotional and visual resonance.

See Sarmed’s work as part of our annual Spring open call, Keep Your Eye on the Doughnut, Not the Hole, which runs April 3rd to 24th, featuring an incredible collection of works by thirty artists leaning into joy, curiosity, and the often surreal pleasure of focusing on what is rather than what isn’t, in a myriad of mediums.

Hi Sarmed, thanks for being with us! Can you tell us how your artistic journey started?
I grew up in a household in Pakistan where debates on politics and literature were as common as cups of tea, and sometimes just as hot. Music arrived first (on cassette), then came books (only paperbacks), and eventually I joined the chorus by writing (with a pencil), adding my own footnotes to the human condition. Later, I wandered into filmmaking, theatre, acting, teaching, and cross-country sailplane glider flights. A patchwork life stitched together by curiosity.

Since settling in Scotland in 1999, that patchwork has deepened in texture. But it was around 2017, after a period of feeling lost, and two back-to-back long silent meditation retreats (yes, that old cliché), that something quietly cracked open. Art became a way of seeing again, not just looking. What started as a curious side alley became a whole new road. I’ve been walking it ever since. There’s a memory that still visits me, drawn from a childhood steeped in Hollywood westerns and war films.

At 11 years old, I was playing with an airgun and, in a moment of mindlessness, I killed a small bird. I hadn’t meant to, but I did. The guilt was unbearable. And somewhere in that moment, something shifted. I made a choice, to stay mindful, to be brave enough to feel, to recognise the damage I could cause and the beauty I could choose to protect. That decision became a quiet vow. To choose morality over impulse. Awareness over numbness. That one act, that grief, planted a seed that still grows. Art, for me, is a way to honour that inner nudge. A way to explore the baffling nature of the human mind, its will, its contradictions, its mysterious entanglement with memory, intention, and destiny.

Can you walk us through your creative process?
It usually starts with a nudge, a face, a phrase, a place, or a feeling that refuses to leave quietly. Sometimes I sketch. Sometimes I stare. Often, I boil the kettle and rehearse productivity. Getting started is rarely graceful. I doodle nonsense to keep the hand moving, knowing that prolonged stillness breeds avoidance. And then bam, the work begins.

I move between the known and the unknown, building trust that the creative well is endless. My abstract work often begins with playful chaos, no clear direction, just movement and colour. But behind that spontaneity is the discipline of classical atelier training, the eye that has spent considerable time learning to see. It’s stored enough visual memory to abstract from. I trust that. I activate it by moving, mixing colours, letting the hand lead, and somewhere in that motion, intention slips in. Then it becomes a dance between intuition and decision. That’s where the magic lives. Silence helps. Tea helps. Deadlines definitely help. Ice cream helps the most.

What emotions or reactions do you hope viewers experience when they see your
artwork?
Ideally, a little jolt. A small gasp. A long pause. Maybe even a memory stirred from its nap. I want viewers to feel like they’ve wandered into something quietly sacred, something familiar but distorted enough to make them look twice. My smaller works sometimes ask for a magnifying glass, my larger ones, a moment of letting go. If someone walks away unsure of what they felt, only that they did feel, that’s success in my book. I believe good art hums a tune your logical mind can’t quite whistle.

What do you do to keep motivated and interested in your work?
Some days I’m fuelled by transcendental purpose. Other days, by caffeine, Netflix playlists, and sheer bloody-minded stubbornness. I stay sane by turning up, to the studio, to exhibitions, to unexpected conversations. I wander. I listen. I talk, and then try to shut up, which is harder than it sounds. The truth is, making art is how I stay interested in life, how I fight back against cruelty, against silence, against that persistent voice (inside or out) that asks, ‘what’s the point?’ My work may look playful at times, but its roots run deep, somewhere between defiance, wonder, and the need to leave behind something that quietly says: I noticed. And honestly? I don’t always know what anything really means. I argue with myself constantly, holding opposing thoughts like two sparring birds. I suppose I’m just an explorer on my own little personal trip, trying to make sense of the nonsense and beauty around me. When the world gets heavy, I return to that quiet inner knock, the one that whispers: make something, anything. Honest. Beautiful. Pointless, even.

Will your next project be a continuation of your current style or are you
experimenting with something different?
I’ve made peace with not sticking to one style or medium. Like Gerhard Richter’s unruly cousin, I jump between techniques and moods. Each series speaks its own language. I don’t discriminate. I want to try it all. The inner nudge dictates.

Coming up, I’m unveiling a socio-political ink drawing titled The Handshake at The Tabernacle in London this June (2025). It’s part of a new series by the same name. The work is raw, born from political disillusionment, old wounds, schoolyard bullies, systemic silence, and the eternal battle between fists and voices, with a dollop of hope depending on your personal outlook. It’s taking me in a new direction, and I’m happy to welcome it. It is time.

At the same time, two pieces from my Monument Valley series, tiny 2x3in oil paintings in bespoke panels, are showing at the Glasgow Art Club in the Paisley Art Institute’s 136th annual show. They mark the intersection where realism met abstraction in my practice. Interestingly, my abstract series was born from the leftover palette of these desert landscapes. The colours lingered, and so did the feeling. I simply followed it.

Find out more about Sarmed’s work on Instagram. Keep Your Eye on the Doughnut, Not the Hole runs at Six Foot Gallery until Thursday 24th April 2025.