Eyes on: Nashid Chroma

April 20, 2022

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Nashid Chroma is a Toronto-Based Digital Pop Artist and his work explores the threshold between the Iconic and the Anonymous. The compositions and visual motifs are inspired by each icon’s upbringing, influences, or the emotions that they evoke from their performances. Floral and geometric adornments are loaded with meaning to humanize the person in question, but they also visually abstract the portraits to feel disconnected and object-like.

This tension between human and object has always been been an inspiration to Nashid and his art responds to this phenomenon. Celebrities are real people with emotions, insecurities, and dreams – but they are also idols of secular worship and adoration. That point is made every time someone displays one of Nashid’s works in their home.

There is also the question of intellectual property and copywrite that is flirted with in Nashid’s work because of the direct clash between an artist’s freedom of expression and a celebrities right of publicity. The motifs consequently are also a shield to protect Nashid’s artistic efforts, but their delicacy alludes to the power struggle between independent creators like himself and large corporate media entities. The question can then be asked to what degree does one resonate more with – who the art is of or Nashid’s artistic interpretation of said figure?

Finally, Nashid uses bright saturated colour as an aesthetic anchor to bind his body of work into a cohesive collection. Chroma refers to the colourfulness of something and he continuously explores new ways to push the boundaries of colour in every new work he produces.

Chroma’s love of music is evident in the pieces: the artist specializes in colourful, eye-catching portraits of iconic musicians and other pop culture figures, including Billie Eilish and Michael Jackson.

He created a Michael Jackson piece and here what he said:

“The King of Pop himself. Michael is one of my most requested paintings, and I can proudly say that I finally felt ready to make this piece live up to my expectations.

Sunflowers were his favorite flower so I used some vintage sunflower illustrations as a reference to allude to his reign on music in the 80s.

The most challenging part about this painting was the metal details on his coat cause I wanted to treat each one like its own abstract painting. It was really demanding, but think it was well worth the 16 total painting hours!

My favorite part about this is the abstraction of the shadow from his hair on his face. It ended up feeling like a stained glass mosaic, and this sort of imagery felt right in portraying Michael’s regality.

Finally, the background is a composite of an ethereal cloudy sky and the lights after this specific performance. I thought it was visually interesting, and also celebrated his memory on and off stage.”