Construction Paper, Blades and Batman?

Arkham Creative is an online Art shop and Gallery, where you can see or buy a unique style of art. The images look like printed pictures but if you take a closer look you see that each image is handmade and consist of layers of cut and coloured paper, shaped by using scalpel blades.

The whole artwork is made up completely of paper. The end product has a huge wow factor and it’s so good that it gives the impression of a print from far. We had the chance to interview Arkham Creatives’ Founder Tariq Sharif.

How did you get started? Was it a hobby at first that turned into a business? I always have been known for being a creative type of person, so one day I was going through the process of printing a poster of Spiderman, and the colours weren’t sharp enough. Sure they looked good on the computer screen but the quality of the colours could never be duplicated on print. I tried all the printing presses in the kingdom, but they couldn’t match my expectations or either it was WAAAAY to expensive.

So while I was at a stationery store, I saw some amazing coloured paper, and that’s when the light bulb went off. With after a whole lot of blood loss, cuts and bruises, I finally got the hang of blades and construction paper to create images I was finally happy with. I started all this inMarch of 2014 and from then on it seemed like people started noticing my work and many actually liking it. With after a whole lot of blood loss, cuts and bruises, I finally got the hang of it.

Where do you get your inspiration from? My grandmother, (god rest her soul) was the first person to give me a meat cleaver when I was 3 years old, so technically she started all this, but seriously, I would like to mention that I did learn a lot from one of the great Bahraini artists, Mr. Khalid Al Muharraqi, who I used to work for back in 2000. Mr. Khalid helped me discover my creative side, as he comes from an amazing artistic lineage.

How did you come up with the name Arkham Creatives? I have been a massive fan of the Batman comics growing up and Arkham Asylum was one of the locations in the comic book series and you kind of need to be all sorts of crazy to play with blades as the people in the prison.

How long do you usually need to create the different layers and how long does it take to stick and put them together? On average it usually take 5-7 days to complete a large detailed piece like Catwoman and Iron-man. I use different glues to get the results that I need, but more often than not I end up gluing my hands together. More often than not I end up gluing my hands together.

What materials do you use? I use very expensive and sharp blades and coloured paper, loads of glue and an ambulance on standby.

What artwork was the hardest and took up the most time? The first Joker that I had made took me 2 weeks to complete, I would spend hours frustrated because I was making mistakes. Sometimes I would accidentally cut myself and my wife would have to place an emergency batman and Winnie the pooh bandages on the injury, but when it was all set, and the glue dried, I was very happy with the result. Since then, I have gotten quicker and improved my techniques. Check out Arkham Creative!

by Kian Schmidt

One8One - UAE