Muslim artist tackles Islamophobia through art

"Only when I started painting Muslim women did people start to question the subject matter."

Azzah Sultan, a native Malaysian, who moved to the US in 2013 has witnessed her fair share of Islamophobia, and has taken up the challenge of tackling the issue through art.

The 20 year-old Muslim artist moved to New York when she was 16 to study fine arts at Parsons School of Design. Young and far away from her loved ones, Sultan decided to channel her emotions and transform her experience into art.

Sultan, now a senior in college, seeks to engage her audience into rethinking their perceptions of Islam and Muslim women.

"I use art to express my feelings and frustrations toward society," Sultan told The Huffington Post.

PHOTO: AZZAHSULTAN.COM



"It was only during the start of junior year that I started painting Muslim women, specifically Muslim women who wore headscarves. Interestingly, only when I started painting Muslim women did people started to question the subject matter that was being painted. Before I would just paint white people in general, a person of “white descent” you could say, " told Muslimah Media Watch.

For a recent piece, called Home Sweet Home, Sultan took to social media to invite Muslim women around the country to donate a red, white or blue headscarf for her project. She received scarves from all over the country, and stitched them together to create an American flag. Sultan also points out that this is the most controversial piece she has done yet.

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She hoped to show that "being a Muslim does not make one any less an American," Sultan told Huffington Post.

“The act of me hand stitching these scarves together brought the different backgrounds and stories of these women into one piece," Sultan said. "This is a testimony of coming from various backgrounds but still sharing the common idea of being a Muslim and an American.”

Sultan believes that the media and society mispresent Muslim women by labeling them "as oppressed, naive, traditional, backward thinking, submissive, and the list goes on."

Previously, in 2014, Sultan introduced a series of painting called Am I Modern Now? Through the paintings, Sultan writes, "I depict the image of a muslim woman wearing a hijab and paint it in the style of famous 60s modern artists. I used their styles and techniques and appropriate it in order to paint a figure of a muslim woman. It plays off the idea that now this muslim woman is painted in the style of modern art is she show considered modern? It's a satire on the stereotypical idea of muslim women can't be modern as they are seen as traditional and set back in time."

With the use of modern painting techniques, Sultan depicts Muslim women who are seen as backward. The interplay between modern and apparently archaic, is how Sultan challenged stereotypes of especially hijab-wearing women.

For the three paintings that make up the series, Sultan borrowed styles from three famous Western modern artists -- Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper John and Andy Warhol -- to demonstrate "how absurd it is to tell a Muslim woman that she is only modern if she adopts Western ideals," Sultan told HuffPost.



PHOTO: AZZAHSULTAN.COM

Sultan does not limit herself to stitching and painting. She also explored identities of Muslim women through a photographic series, she titled We Are Not The Same. The series reveals the diversity of Muslim women, in terms of their experiences, and the way they dress.
Sultan writes, "In this series of photographs I capture five Muslim women in their own space. The media has always portrayed Muslim women as oppressed and that we all dress and look the same.

Through building friendships here in New York City this project looks in depth into breaking stereotypes and showing how we as Muslim women aren't the same. Although we do share the same faith we have our own interests, personalities, cultures, styles and hobbies."



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"My ultimate goal, insha'Allah, is to own a gallery space where I can work with other Muslim and like-minded artists to create an environment where we can express ourselves through art," Sultan told Huffington Post.