Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

I was raised in Vermont. My mother named me Samira, which means “evening conversationalist” in Arabic. I’m a night owl, and I talk in my sleep—so it fits. I like to call myself a compulsive collector. The best things I have in life are my memories.

My practice is grounded in print, textiles, and glass, always layered, always material-forward. At the heart of my work is my late mother’s archive: her photographs, notes, diaries, and publications. My work often lives in the space between pop culture and personal iconography. I pay attention to the image and the object, how they play off one another, and build meaning through composition, material, and context. Whether it’s a printed phrase or a distorted photo transferred onto glass, each piece invites intimacy and reflection, grounded in a story that’s both mine and not just mine.

Can you talk about how you conceived the name ‘From Samira’?

My mother gave me my name, Samira. When she was in her twenties, she created an alter ego named Samira to write letters to her best friend. That summer, they spent their days gossiping and storytelling, slipping between truth and performance. She’d always sign the letters From Samira.

Now I sign Samira. It’s both a continuation and a reclaiming. It holds memory, authorship, and playful sincerity. A name, a sign-off, a way of saying: this is coming from me but maybe not just me -from Samira. If you know what I mean.

Outside of your primary art practice, you also make and sell clothes. Can you speak on how these intersect?

In addition to my main studio work, I create and sell hand-drawn clothing. What started as something playful quickly became another way of processing ideas. It’s about humor, cultural memory, and subversion.

I’ve always been fascinated by T-shirt culture—how something so casual can carry a bold statement, almost like bumper stickers, but for the body. The drawings often come straight from my sketchbooks: messy thoughts, overheard phrases, impulsive notes, picture quotes, faces, song lyrics, whatever sticks.

It’s like: “I should put that on a T-shirt.” I’m always hearing things. Then I’m saying things. Then someone else says something, and I’m like, “Wait, that’s good. Ima put that on a shirt.” Then I say something dumb or weird or lowkey genius, and I’m like, “Wait. That’s actually good. Put that on a shirt.” And everyone’s like, “No fr, put it on a shirt.” And I’m like, “No, yeah, I will.” Then I do… and sometimes I don’t. I even put that on a shirt.

Drawing on fabric feels like publishing a page from my world. It’s still storytelling, just more portable. The same themes that guide my studio work show up here, just with a wink.

How do you source your imagery? How personal is this aspect?

I source my imagery from personal archives, home videos, family photos, and my camera roll. I’m grateful to my dad for being such a dedicated documenter of life and to my grandmother. These are often the starting points. I also explore public image sites, such as Flickr. I like blending these intimate, lived memories with broader fragments of visual culture. It makes the work deeply personal but also leaves room for others to find something recognizable, something shared, or something strange in a familiar way.

What are your thoughts on image appropriation in our current digital climate?

In today’s fast-paced digital world, where media is engineered to capture our attention in seconds, specific images stand out. Image appropriation feels like a natural response to that cycle. Images are reshaped, recontextualized, and reused to mirror how we process and consume visual culture. At times, this act of appropriation reveals how we categorize the world—what we value, what we remember, and what we overlook. Do I think it’s okay to use someone else’s image and claim it as your own? No. However, I do believe that a twist, when done intentionally, can spark a conversation. It becomes less about copying and more about responding. That can be generative if you’re willing actually to engage with it.

How do you think relationships with the Internet have become more inherent to working as an artist?

I grew up with the Internet. I made my Instagram account when I was nine years old if that tells you anything. It’s always been more than a place to post. It’s where I’ve learned to observe, to research, to play detective. I’m always playing I Spy, online and off.

The Internet even gave me access to traces of my mother I wouldn’t have found otherwise. I came across digital notes like the ones on RateMyProfessor:

“She’s very nice. And yes, she’s easy on the eyes… National expert on women’s issues/law. Is smokin’ hot as well (love the boots).”

It’s amusing, yet also somewhat brutal. That casual objectification says a lot about the culture we absorb—what gets remembered, what gets erased, and how brilliant women still get flattened into looks and soundbites. For me, the Internet is both an archive and a mirror. It shapes how we perform, how we’re perceived, and how we document ourselves. As a Gen Z artist, it’s not just a platform it’s a material. I use it to reflect on power, gender, and memory, often with a touch of humor and edge. But the core of my practice is physical. My materials —glass, fabric, and print — carry weight, texture, and time. The Internet helps my work reach further, but the making is what grounds me. Pop culture and technology are constantly trying to sell us something to shape our perceptions and feelings. I try to flip that and use it instead.

What are some recent, upcoming, or current projects you are working on?

I’m currently finishing work for my show opening on July 11th at The Everything Store’s new event and exhibition space in Chicago. I’ll be presenting a collection of one-of-one T-shirts alongside studio work. It’ll be the largest group of shirts I’ve shown together, and getting to show both sides of my practice under one roof is precisely why I do this. I’m incredibly grateful to the magical Kacie, the owner of The Everything Store, for proposing the idea. It’s a way to blur the line between art and everyday life: playful, accessible, and real. Sometimes, that’s where the most honest art lives.

Think: T-shirt gallery, love songs, catfights, secrets…

How did your interest in your work begin?

I’ve always been drawn to creating things. Whether it was dyeing my hair blue at the age of seven or discovering screen printing in high school, making art gave me a sense of freedom and a way to understand the world, something I’m incredibly grateful for.

Just before I turned eleven, I lost my mother to mental illness. Exploring her diaries and belongings became like piecing together a puzzle. Now, more than ten years later, I see this journey as part of something much larger: a shared experience of memory, resilience, and the complex truths of womanhood.

Growing up, my father’s hobby of restoring old cars introduced me to the language of making, fixing, caring, and transforming with patience and love. The smell of the shop, the sound of tools, and the slow renewal of something old into something new all inform the tactile nature of my work.

Coming across my mother’s unpublished manuscript, “Catfights, Why Women Compete (and Why Men Love It),” also deeply inspired me to examine how women are often pitted against each other and how that dynamic plays out in both personal and public life.

Can you speak on your use of materiality? Do you ever set yourself rules or limitations?

Thomas Ogden writes of a “primitive edge”—a space driven by sensation, texture, and emotion rather than logic. This tension reflects my experience working with my mother’s archive of fragmented memories and scattered objects that resist coherence. In the chaos, I find flickers of her presence: a scrawled note, a photo where she looks both familiar and distant. It’s like skateboarding in high heels: precarious, awkward, yet captivating. I’ve always dreamed of skateboarding in red-bottom Louboutins—such a vibe. This friction between control and collapse fuels my practice, where structure emerges from disorder and fractured narratives take shape. Material isn’t just a medium; it’s a mood.

My work combines skills from printmaking, textile manipulation, photography, and digital editing. I use screen printing and image transfer on fabric and glass, blending analog techniques with digital preparation. Each glass tile involves layering images, often combining my mother’s archive with found photos—transferred onto glass with precision and patience. On fabric, I apply dyes, foil, extender base, and vinyl, then stretch the textiles over wood. I embrace accidents like dye bleeds and glass cracks. They become collaborators rather than flaws. The grid-based glass installations feel like physical puzzles, echoing how we scroll through streams of images online. The slight shifts and overlaps mirror how memory works, fractured and inconsistent. Over time, I’ve learned to trust material as its narrator, moving away from literal storytelling to invite viewers into the space between clarity and distortion, remembering and forgetting.

Does the arts community of Chicago play an essential role in supporting your work? How so? 

Absolutely. I’m grateful for my former teachers and the spaces in Chicago that helped shape me. There’s something about the Midwest—it feels like it’s stuck in the mid-2000s in a way, and I find that oddly inspiring. It’s in the textures, the storefronts, the ways people carry themselves, the DIY spirit that still lingers. That time feels emotionally rich to me, pre-social media overload, but already fractured and image-saturated.

Spaces like The Everything Store are significant. They allow my work to be viewed in multiple dimensions, not just on walls but also on bodies, in motion, and conversation. I’m lucky to be surrounded by friends, artists, and gallery spaces that value that kind of fluidity. Chicago has a way of making room for experimentation without demanding polish, and that’s meant everything to my process.

What do you want someone to ideally walk away with after experiencing your work? How does this differ from your clothing?

Ideally, I want people to leave feeling like they’ve been let in on something intimate, maybe unresolved, but real. The work requires slowness and attention to contradiction. It’s emotional, even when it’s playful. Foggy, vaporized. I want it to feel like a little game of I Spy where noticing becomes part of the experience.

The clothing, by contrast, speaks more immediately. A shirt might make you laugh, feel seen, or spark a conversation. It’s still rooted in memory and meaning, just in a faster, more public way. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, but it’s still sincere—just a different kind of intimacy: worn, shared, passed on.

Can you walk us through your process when entering the studio?

I work in a small, cluttered studio, so I enter carefully—literally. It’s a maze of objects, inkjet papers, and glues, but everything has its place. Once I settle in, the sorting begins: images, materials, thoughts. I like starting from a mess. That’s where the patterns emerge.

What are you excited about right now?

Currently, I’m excited about exploring my dad’s barn in Vermont. The top level is packed with old photographs, letters, clothing, and car parts—it’s the ultimate pack rat’s paradise. I love junk because it’s never just junk. It holds weight, stories, and context. That process of discovery is also part of my practice.

Is there any work, books, movies, or other media that you find yourself constantly coming back to or referencing lately?

I often return to books like “Play It As It Lays” by Joan Didion and “Story of My Life” by Jay McInerney. Growing up, I absorbed a very different set of cultural artifacts than my mother did. Shows like Gossip Girl and Keeping Up with the Kardashians glorified female competition, reinforcing hierarchies of desirability and power. The rise of internet porn, social media, and influencer culture in the 2000s only amplified these dynamics, reshaping how women’s value is performed and perceived.

These images feel like contemporary echoes of the media my mother critiqued in the’ 90s—both continuity and change in how female competition is packaged and sold. Budweiser ads where women fight for male attention frame competition as entertainment. These fragments aren’t just nostalgic. They form part of the archive I’m building and the visual language I’m unraveling.

Do you ever find it challenging to stay consistent when navigating so many different aspects of your practice?

It’s not easy. I’m usually juggling a lot of textiles, print, glass, writing, and clothing, and that can get chaotic. But strangely, that chaos gives me a sense of control. I’m not a perfectionist; I work in a more instinctive, all-over-the-place way. I trust my intuition deeply. There’s a freedom in that kind of rhythm. It’s not about staying perfectly consistent; it’s about staying connected. Allowing the different parts of my practice to speak to each other, overlap, or even contradict one another is what keeps it alive for me. Doing everything at once helps inform each object I make.

Can you share one of the best or worst reactions you have gotten as a result of your work?

I think the best reactions are often the simple ones—but not surface-level, more like when someone pauses and says, “Wait, how was this even made?” That confusion, paired with curiosity, really speaks to me. Some of my favorite works, by others and myself, are those where the process isn’t immediately apparent. They’re complex, but not in a loud way. It’s like: is it simple or just deceptively so?

I love it when something looks confusing but feels right. Sometimes, I feel like a magician or a mad scientist when it comes to presenting the work. Not trying to trick anyone, but creating that feeling of wonder, like something is going on under the surface that you can’t fully name.

 

Interview conducted and edited by Liam Owings