Samira Cherif

IG: @cherif.samira / @sketch_the.bottom.of.a.barrel

From Italy, moved to Norway in 2012, based in Oslo.
I remember when I found a group for expats in Norway, with the aim of socializing based on the common artistic/creative background. I was still trying to adjust to a new country and needed new friends; I really felt that I could fit in such a group, I should belong there. But the problem was: I had made no art. Nothing; never. Apart from some drawings and sketches in school books, and it was so long ago anyway.
It hurt so much, I felt that life had thrown me so far away from what I had wanted or imagined to be. It had been "too late" for so long that those words didn't make sense anymore.
That same day I rushed to a shop and bought cheap and bad quality art supplies. I did nothing with it, I didn't know how to use them. A long time after that I went to a short three days watercolor class. I had never used watercolor before and it was incredibly frustrating. But challenges have always done the trick for me: I must try again. And again. And so on.

It was 2015 and things went very slowly with art. I didn't give up, but I worked too much and had no time for it. In 2018 I took my life back, I made time, and art was suddenly everything I got. I painted on canvas for the first time, tried acrylics, oil and egg-tempera. Different styles, teachers, techniques, until someone pushed me one day to break the rules and paint without a plan.
As for today, I can't imagine myself without painting or drawing. I have not yet figured everything out, but I keep learning and trying - and failing, and trying again.