How was your weekend? Time for another Changeling imterview, this time with artist Mirku!
Emmy: Hello! Tell our readers a little bit about yourself.
Mirku: My name is Mirka, I’m based in Cologne, Germany. Artistically I call myself Mirku because I always liked to use my name in different ways. For me, it represents that I could take on different personalities. I mostly work with ink and watercolour. I just adore how water makes the pigments shine. This is always the best moment in the drawing practice. I’m also very much influenced by surrealism, especially the feminist surrealism by artists such as Remedios Varo and Leonora Carrington.
Emmy: What inspired your piece for Changeling, “Catching Ideas”?
Mirku: I have a best friend whom I would also categorise as neurodivergent. We are completely opposite with our behaviours and we have difficulties finding our spaces within the world. As an ADHD person, it was just that I was sitting on my bicycle when this idea came to my head. ’Cause he is a person I can always talk to and he helps me to keep on track.
Emmy: How long have you been creating art?
Mirku: I’ve been drawing and painting all my life but never as a routine. I always knew that I had a certain talent but somehow other things were always more important than that. But I took a nude drawing class in the middle of last year that inspired me to do more, and I just adore it.
Emmy: Where is your favourite place to create?
Mirku: Honestly, what I like the most is sitting outside and letting myself be influenced by all the little pieces of reality that come to my mind. What people around me talk about. The noises, the colours etc. I feel more present when I’m sketching the everyday.
Emmy: Who was your inspiration when you were younger?
Mirku: I remember that I adored Kurt Cobain a lot. I used to translate his song texts and learned a lot of English from that. This should also refer to the fact that my youth was not the easiest of all, as it is for many others. In the more present day, as I already mentioned, it is especially Leonora Carrington who was a British surrealist painter and writer, I really like her humour and how she relates to the world with that.
Emmy: What were you passionate about when you were younger?
Mirku: I think I was mostly passionate about everything. I was so curious and wanted to know more about the world. I remember that I had thematic periods where I read about different topics, like to Holocaust, India etc. I’m still very curious about many things.
Emmy: What is your favourite thing about being neurodivergent?
Mirku: For me it’s that I can get so many things done at a time, when (as people told me) others would say, “you are doing so much.” For me it doesn’t feel like that. It just feels normal. And it allowed me to create artwork even though I had a lot of other things to do at the same time.
Emmy: What is your favourite thing about creating art?
Mirku: Honestly speaking it is when it brings other people joy. I can only have my own eye on that, so it was hard to tell if people would like what I do. But I think it’s not entirely about the recognition. It is the joy that I like the most.
Emmy: Do you think being neurodivergent impacts your creativity in any way?
Mirku: I do think so, yes. I feel that I can get an idea into practice in a relatively short time so I have a lot of productivity. This is a blessing and curse at the same time cause I also have to down-regulate myself a lot, which is the hardest thing to do. Therefore I need my best friend who is often also laughing at me when I come out with something random all of a sudden.
Emmy: What would you say to encourage any aspiring artists reading this?
Mirku: If we want to see change in the world, we need a value shift from consumption to creativity. Creativity is also such a great gift for one’s own inner peace and transformation. So I would say that all arts are a means of survival for me. Any time you have the chance, just let your mind jump from the highest hill to the deepest depth about the ocean.
Emmy: Is Changeling your first time being published?
Mirku: I’m gonna be published in another neurodiverse publication called Spoonie Press, where I visually talk about different topics. Aside from that I had an art publication in Artist Talk Magazine, as well as my first participation in a physical exhibition here in Cologne, and a virtual one with Kuvic Art gallery.
Follow Mirku @mirku.malt on Instagram.
Changeling Annual 2023 will be published in Spring — keep an eye out for updates by following our Instagram.
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