Visual artist Poonam Saha shares with us the story of her journey and what the future holds for her
Bangladesh has always had a burgeoning scene of underground artists, many of whom are now dazzling the mainstream with their talent. Poonam Saha is one such individual. A self taught visual artist, she excels at expressing her imagination through her work. Not only that, throughout the last few years, she has also been working with brands to help them bring their values to life through visual communication. Be it through interior designs, graphic designs or art installations, she excels at creating a coherent eclectic body of work that represents the values of her clients.
Poonam always had a passion for art but that hobby turned into a profession in 2011 when she started working as a sketch artist for a small studio. “I was always intrigued by the minimalistic illustration approaches from artists like Sara Herranz. She has been a great source of inspiration and basically the reason why I even opened a page. At my first job, I mostly worked with branding, comics and many other projects but my work would basically be pen and paper based. My friends would ask me to open my own page so that my work can get more recognition but I was plagued by skepticism that I might not be good enough”, she explained. But in 2015, she finally decided to put some trust in herself, shrug off the skepticism and open a Facebook page and the response for individuals and brands alike was overwhelming.
Her little leap of faith led her to work with the likes of Bata, Huaweii, NewsCred, Hakka Dhaka, Cheez, Kludio, Frybox just to name a few. Her work has also been internationally recognized by platforms such as SuicideSheep & BoredPanda, garnering a strong following in Japan in particular. Not only that but Joseph Gordon Levitt featured one of her artworks on both his Twitter and Instagram in 2017 which is no small feat considering he’s a Hollywood A-lister.
Of course challenges are aplenty in any field, not to mention one where you have to constantly come up with new ideas but Poonam is a natural at that. She had to overcome a different set of challenges. “The initial problems mostly involved getting my name across the table as I didn’t really socialize enough. Since I am a naturally introverted person, it was a bit difficult to go to a crowd and make a mark for myself. I’d not really be considered in group projects or wouldn’t be the ideal choice as I didn’t come from a particular scene or group. Being less vocal, definitely pushed me back from getting a few things that came to others more quickly”, she elaborated. Another problem she faced was trying to manage time between work and art. However, those days are gone and Poonam has learned to take things in stride and her work transcends beyond mediums and international borders. Earlier this month she made a doodle crossover between Avatar and Among Us which blew up on reddit and got over a million views in the span of 2 days! She is also currently working on launching her merch which got delayed due to the pandemic. In addition, she is also working as a marketing consultant and a designer for a few upcoming brands. She was particularly excited about one project which she hopes to reveal to the world soon.
You can check out some of her work at her website (please give link). Her work ranges from digital illustrations to 2D & 3D architecture modeling, furniture design, web & app UI and also branding & content marketing. Talk about talent!