Before Kevin Hosseini was introduced to painting when he was 9 years old, things like emotional expression and mental focus were more challenging. Once he got a chance to create art, he says he felt happy. In school, he had trouble paying attention in class, but when he painted, he was able to pay attention and could keep painting for a long time.
Hosseini was diagnosed with autism when he was 3 years old. His family got a grant from the Koegel Autism Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, providing him with services and regular interactions with students from the college, including one who began teaching him how to draw and paint. Later, at 13, he was diagnosed with schizo-affective disorder. In the years since, his work has won numerous awards and been included in dozens of exhibitions throughout California, the U.S., and other countries including Italy, China, Ukraine, England, and Canada. Most recently, his work is featured alongside more than a dozen other artists with autism in “The Art of Autism: A Different Lens,” a partnership between the Oceanside Museum of Art and The Art of Autism nonprofit, of which Hosseini’s mother, Debra Muzikar, is a co-founder and board member. The exhibition displays the work of neurodiverse artists at the museum through Aug. 3, with an exhibition celebration scheduled for May 3.
Hosseini, 30, who has four pieces in “The Art of Autism” show, lives in Allied Gardens with his dad, Hamid. He creates art part time, selling his art through ArtLifting.com to places like Google or Apple and collecting royalty checks. He took some time to talk about his artwork, his favorite artists, and what inspires him creatively (for this interview, Muzikar assisted with his responses).
Q: Can you talk a bit about your introduction to art through one of your therapists? What was happening for you in therapy before art was brought into the picture?
A: I grew up in Carpinteria and I had two older sisters. I was diagnosed at UCSB (University of California, Santa Barbara) and students from UCSB would come to my house and play with me or take me for hikes or sometimes go surfing. John Marc taught me to play chess, Israel taught me frisbee golf, Keith had a dog named Bella and we would play with Bella at the beach. Another Keith liked to draw cartoons, and I liked to watch him draw funny people. When I was 9, one of the students who worked with me, Colin, was an artist. I asked Colin to draw me something like Keith would. He told me to draw it myself. I didn’t know how and he started working with me on drawing and then we started painting. He would talk to me about the colors and the composition as we painted. He asked questions about how I was feeling. We’d look at books or magazines and tear out pictures I liked and then I would try to paint them. We spent time looking at paintings in art books and talking about the artist’s lives and Colin would ask how they would paint if they were living today. Colin would talk to me about how they used the brush or palette knife to make things pop on the canvas. We would mix the oil paint with Liquin Impasto (an oil painting medium used to thicken oil paints) to create different textures. He taught me about colors and the color wheel. I liked the feel of thick paint on the brush and would become excited when my paintings had a lot of layers and texture.
Q: At what point did you realize you enjoyed painting, more than it serving as a tool during therapy?
A: Mom sold a painting of mine when I was 11. I made money. That made me feel good. My sister’s friend bought my paintings; that made me feel good, too. I worked with another artist when I was about 13. His name was Dan Gibbs, and he taught me how to paint on very big canvases. I worked with him as part of a documentary movie. I had an exhibit with Dan Gibbs in Hollywood. A museum curator saw my art and was doing an exhibit on synesthesia. I had some art pieces from my Iranian collection that were of food and bus rides in Iran, and he sent them for an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in Kiev, Ukraine.
What I love about Allied Gardens…
I like that my sister visits me and we go for walks on the beach or at the park. I like going to Middle Eastern grocery stores in El Cajon, which is close by, but I would prefer if my dad had a house closer to the beach.
Q: What inspires you in your art?
A: Music and places I want to travel to. I went to Iran when I was 13. I have an entire series of paintings of Iran and the Middle East and others of Mexico. I had so many paintings that my mom arranged for over 60 of them to hang at the UCSB Autism Center. When we moved to San Diego when I was 20, she took them all down. Last week I picked one of them up from her house and put it on my bedroom wall.
Q: Do you have artists whose work you particularly enjoy?
A: I like (Vincent) van Gogh, (Marc) Chagall, (Pablo) Picasso, Henri Rousseau, George Bellows, Gerhard Richter. In Santa Barbara, I liked the artists Patricia Chidlaw and our neighbor Lety Garcia’s art. Patricia Chidlaw is a photo realistic painter. I saw her work at an art gallery and my mom arranged a private tour of her studio. She shared with me her techniques for painting using new brushes for each painting and using a projector to display an image so that she can trace the image on the canvas. She gave me her old brushes which were almost new and much better than my brushes. I wanted to paint like her, so my mom bought a projector so I could trace images on the canvas and use that as a guideline before I started painting, but my paintings are not photo realistic and do not look like Patricia Chidlaw’s.
Q: And what is it that you like most about their work?
A: I like the action and movement in George Bellows’ paintings, especially his boxing paintings. I saw them at the Smithsonian. I like how Gerhard Richter layers his paint over each other. I like the colors and movements in Van Gogh’s paintings. Van Gogh is my favorite painter.
Q: Can you take us through what your days are like working on your art, during your time creating?
A: My sister, Katie assists, me now. She comes to my house and helps me set up my easel and my palette. We talk about what I’m going to paint and what part of the painting I’m going to paint. We look at photographs that inspire my paintings. The photographs are usually photos that I see things in that would be fun painting or nature scenes that are more calming for me to paint. I paint in segments. I go back later and add details to the segments that I’ve painted. A painting will take about 10 hours to complete. I don’t paint for more than two hours at a time. If I get obsessed with my thoughts and stop painting, Katie will talk to me and help get me back on track.
Q: Tell us about “The Art of Autism: A Different Lens” exhibition. What were you thinking about as you went through concept to execution for these pieces?
A: I get inspired by photographs. Sometimes it’s a place I want to visit. I like city scenes. I imagine myself in the place in the photograph and then I paint that place.
Q: What did you want to say through the pieces you created or included in this show?
A: That I like color, movement, and shapes in my art. My art is inspired by places I’d like to visit.
Q: What has your work taught you about yourself?
A: That I feel better when I’m painting and I’m not overthinking and becoming agitated about things that bother me.
Q: What is the best advice you’ve ever received?
A: Take deep breaths.
Q: What is one thing people would be surprised to find out about you?
A: That I’m learning how to speak Farsi.
Q: Please describe your ideal San Diego weekend.
A: Going to a Persian New Year’s celebration at the park, listening to bands, and eating Iranian food.
