In Conversation with: Laxmi Hussain

Much of your work explores the female body with a tenderness that feels both intimate and universal. What compels you to return to this subject again and again, and is there one piece of work that holds a particularly personal significance, whether for what it represents or how it came into being?

I think I keep returning to the female form because I'm fascinated by how our bodies shift and evolve. When I first began, it came from a love of life drawing - just a pure desire to draw the body. But quite early on, I started to notice that something wasn’t sitting right. I wasn’t seeing myself in the work I was making. I realised I was still viewing the body - even my own - through a lens that wasn’t really mine. It was shaped by what we’ve been taught to see, this kind of default ‘ideal’ through a male gaze.

That realisation came after I’d had my second child. I wanted to change the narrative, to show my own body, and to celebrate how it had carried me through so much: the births of my children, the loss of both my parents, the everyday business of aging and living. I think it’s really important for everyone, not just women, to see how a body can tell the story of a life.

Blue appears again and again in your work: it’s become almost like a signature. What draws you so powerfully to that colour, and what does it represent for you personally?

Blue is my mum. She got sick around the time I was beginning to take my practice more seriously, and blue became this thread between us. I had just moved into a little shared studio space, and I’d go between there, work, and the hospital. Blue started to show up in everything - not deliberately at first, but then it became almost an obsession.

When she passed away a few months later, my sister showed me a photo of her from a trip to the Philippines. She’s wearing head-to-toe denim, and I remember that day so clearly because I was the only one of her kids with her. I must have been about five. It’s one of my earliest memories, and in it, she’s just glowing in this vivid, familiar blue. It’s the colour I see when I think of her.

She didn’t get to see this chapter of my life unfold, but she’s in everything I make. Pouring that blue into my work keeps her with me. I even got married in blue! She turned up in a blue suit too, even though we hadn’t planned it. We just had that unspoken connection.

There’s also this brilliant book, Bluets by Maggie Nelson where she talks about being in a relationship with a colour. That’s exactly how I feel. It’s emotional, addictive, instinctive. Blue is home.

 

You’ve spoken before about reclaiming your identity through art after becoming a mother. How has motherhood continued to influence your creative journey, especially now as a mother of three?

Motherhood changed everything for me. To be able to carry and raise children is an enormous privilege, and it’s also completely life-altering. I’ve always documented life through drawing, but motherhood gave me a whole new lens.

As my children have grown, so has my understanding of what it means to be a mother without having my own parents around anymore. It’s added this layer of reflection - I think a lot about the childhood I had and how that shaped me. I’ve been working on this archive project recently, going through old negatives and scanning hundreds of photos from my childhood. It’s emotional, but also grounding. So many of the themes I explore in my work - that tenderness, that balancing act of motherhood - I see mirrored in those old photographs.

One image in particular has really stuck with me: I’m about one year old, standing between my mum’s legs while she balances two plates of food. It’s just so typical of motherhood, right? That quiet multitasking, always juggling. I’m starting to think about how to bring more of that imagery into my practice now - about how to stitch those threads of past and present together in my work.

And of course, identity is complicated by heritage, too. My mum was from the Philippines, my dad from Gujarat in India. They were very different people, and that shaped the culture I grew up in. My mum passed down so much: the food, the traditions, the language. But my dad didn’t really pass on the Indian side of things in the same way. I’ve never even been to India. So now that he’s gone, I’m left wondering: what part of that identity do I still hold? Am I still Indian without him? It’s something I’m trying to make peace with, and I think it’s slowly making its way into the work.

You work across paper, raw canvas, and wood. Is there a medium or scale that feels most like home?

I do love paper. Paper’s got such a beautiful quality to it, especially natural papers. I really like things kind of the way that they are. I think the honesty of who I am in my work represents itself best across the papers that I choose, because I also want them to be a part of the artwork. And that's why a lot of them have really raw edges, and I want their beauty to kind of shine as well. I think that's probably my favourite surface to work across.

What does a typical day in the studio look like, and are there any rituals or rhythms that ground your practice?

It’s a bit sporadic at the moment, but I do usually have quite a good routine. Most afternoons I’m in the studio, and a couple of days a week I’ll work a full day. But I have a US client at the moment, which means my schedule often runs later and I might be on Zoom until 9 or 10pm. It means my mornings are a bit slower, which actually suits me.

The US has really embraced my work. A lot of my collectors are there now, and it's definitely on my wishlist to have a proper exhibition over there because it makes sense to bring the work to the people who are connecting with it.

Looking back, are there any people, places or moments that have deeply shaped the artist you are today?

So many! My parents, of course. That photo archive project has made me appreciate how present they were in our lives. My first little studio, where blue really started to dominate my palette. My degree, which gave me discipline and structure. Losing my parents shaped my art just as much as becoming one.

And now, I’m thinking a lot about what it means to be the child who becomes the parent - and how to honour that full circle in my work.

With your next exhibition on the horizon, are there new themes or ideas you’re beginning to explore? What’s inspiring you right now?

I’m really interested in the idea of parent child and child now being a parent - that kind of history and connection within a family. Both of my parents aren’t here anymore, but I’ve been going through these beautiful old photos of us, and some of them have really similar compositions to my paintings. The question I've been thinking for a few weeks now is, how do I depict that? 

It’s this mix of memory and visual language that I’m trying to untangle. There are some photos that just really say so much without being too on the nose. I’m interested in how those small moments can hold so much meaning.

I’ve also just finished painting an egg for The Big Egg Hunt, which is part of this amazing charity project by The Elephant Family who work on wildlife conservation. It’s the biggest egg hunt London’s ever had, with over 100 eggs dotted around the city in Canary Wharf, Battersea, Soho, Covent Garden, Chelsea and a few other places. There are some really brilliant artists involved, people I follow, people I know of, people who are quite big time, so it feels like a real honour to be part of it. My egg’s in Canary Wharf, right outside the station, and it’s already been collected by nearly 3,000 people, which is kind of mad.

Finally (we must ask!) is there a particular piece of jewellery you wear or treasure that carries particular meaning for you?

I actually found (and sadly lost) a piece that meant a lot to me a few years back. It was a blue lapis ring I spotted in this tiny antique shop that’s rarely open. I’d been going through a tough day, missing my mum, and happened to walk past when it was open. I’d always noticed the ring in the window, and that day I just went in and bought it because it felt like a sign. The shop owner let it go for £40, and I wore it all the time.

Then last year, I lost it whilst I was prepping for a workshop. I never lose jewellery, and I’m quite intentional about what I wear, usually pieces I want to keep forever or pass down. So that one really stayed with me.

Laxmi wears our Thalassa Ring in gold, Artemis Ring in silver, The Oceanus Cuff Small and The Goddess Necklace.