The Altar of Art & Healing: The Surreal Merger of the Multi-faceted Human Experience
Salma Vir-Banks in conversation with Sue Hunt / Photography by Diggy Lloyd
Sue: Salma your work contains a grounded, yet ethereal quality and its vibrancy sucks us in. Can you give us a bit of your journey as an artist, you work across mediums, how did all of that unfold for you?
Salma: My journey as an artist began at a really young age. Dance was my first realization that there was something there…
Something I needed to pay attention to. I was about seven or eight years old and was listening to music in my childhood New Jersey apartment. I found myself in syncopated and complex movements and decided I needed to show my mother. Needless to say she was speechless. Up until that point I had not had any major or influential dance training, besides maybe a few years at the Dance Theatre of Harlem.
I always knew movement felt especially fluid and easy for me.
Sue: As you courageously healed your relationship with your body and past with movement, did that open your voice and vision to explore other forms of art? We are curious about your evolution of expression. Can you elaborate on the link between trauma and ritual? Has creating from this place been a healing journey of expression for you?
Salma: I began painting and creating 2D art when I was about twelve years old. During that time my father and I became estranged and the impacts of my childhood trauma were manifesting as an eating disorder and self-harm behaviors.
Art literally saved me and continues to help me heal. It not only saved my physical life, but it kept me from becoming detrimentally changed and altered as a result of my childhood wounds.
The Black experience is surreal, absurd, and very strange. To have your humanity neglected and almost blatantly mocked is a surreal experience. To be separated from your ancestral lands and people is a surreal and disorienting experience. I aim to explore these surreal realities in my art.
My work is always a conversation between resilience, mythology, iconography, trauma, ritual, and the surreal realities marginalized people must occupy and contend with.
Sue: Thank you for your clarity and craft, this is deeply profound and so needed in conversation and image and creative process. Your work seems to transcend worlds, cultures and mediums. How does this merging happen for you, in body, craft and finished pieces?
Salma: I grew up in a multiracial and multicultural home. My mother is from Northern India and my step-father is Black American from the Southeast. My biological father is also Black American. I am incredibly proud of my cultures and identity. This bridge informs my art all the time.
Sue: Your words here open new vantage points for those who engage with your work, “Afro-Punjabi woman dealing with personal restoration and reclaiming personal mythology and archetypes” How has your own creative energy and drive to create been a healing force in reclamation? Also, please share any insights into mythology and archetype from your Afro-Punjabi roots that have deeply influenced your work and worldview, we are all ears!
Salma: Healing and restoration have been major themes in my journey. I recently graduated with a masters in Art Therapy and Counseling and currently work as a therapist. I personally have over eleven years clean from active addiction as well as ten years abstinence from disordered eating.
I spent most of my adult social life in and around healing communities, 12 Step fellowships, and spaces dedicated to personal transformation. I don’t say this to garner applause or recognition but rather to speak to a deep desperation I felt to “feel better” as a young adult. I struggled a lot and often felt alienated due to my issues with addiction and self destruction. I feel as though I have come full circle now as a therapist - many of the things I endured now make more sense.
I have decided to use my experiences to help empower others and do this primarily through my art and therapy practice. The alchemist is a strong archetypal energy I work with. I have had to repeatedly transform my trauma into abundance and love. Sometimes it’s hard and I feel real resistance - these are the pains that need more time, compassion, and forgiveness.
Sue: Deep respect for sharing the truth of your personal path and the courage to alchemize trauma for self and others. Wow, the vision and intention behind Meridian Ink, l ove the name by the way, is phenomenal. As a lover of tattoos myself, our flesh tells quite the story of darkness and light, as well as history, memories and future karmic roads. This feels like another level reclaiming earth, flesh and future by reframing how we hold our bodies in the past. How and where can the Rhizo community learn more about Meridian Ink and support its launch in 2023?
Salma: In 2015 I received the download for Meridian Ink. I initially wanted to reclaim and celebrate my self-harm scars and since then the idea has evolved into an intersectional holistic practice where tattooing, eco therapy, biomimicry, art therapy, and somatic practice come together.
The process begins with the harvesting of eco fractals and symbols/art forms found within natural landscapes. As a biomimetic practice, Meridian Ink is inspired by the abundant creativity found within nature. Common forms and shapes are often replicated by natural processes. The eco fractals harvested for Meridian Ink all correlate to specific principles found within nature, i.e. courage, openness, cooperation, trust, selflessness, self-preservation, endurance, surrender, etc. These eco fractals are brought together in mandala-inspired (self circle) patterns to become body fractals. The body fractals are then placed along intentional points of the body, usually meridian lines and acupressure points.
For example, a surrender fractal, inspired by visual f orms of surrender and acceptance, can be placed along the kidney meridian to bring consciousness to the body’s response to anxiety and a need to control. Meridian Ink took a temporary back seat as I finished my masters, but I intend to get this process revived in the coming year. You can learn more about Meridian on my website, salmathegiant.com.
Sue: Can you tell us your main three- Sun Moon and Rising Signs? How does this affect your creative process?
Salma: My big three are Aquarius Sun (Sidereal Aquarius), Cancer Moon (Sidereal Gemini) and Sag rising (Sidereal Scorpio). More than anything…
I feel like some form of an amalgamation between cancer and scorpio! My art always incorporates some sort of sensory experience for my viewers - whether it’s bright colors, engaging graphics, sound, or dance. I want people to experience my art, feel deeply with it, and move in harmony with it. I want people to feel deeper into themselves when they experience my work. Art is an ancient medicine. My cancer moon is always worshiping at the altar of creation and I constantly envision my work as forms of birth and regeneration.
Sue: Oh yes, I feel so much of how you described Cancerian Energies, as a Cancer myself. Lastly, share some closing words that feel important to your heart and our reader.
Salma: My work is not just a performance or spectacle of Black pain or the Black experience. It is meant to help us all recognize our own humanity so that we may recognize it in others.
How can we turn recognition of each other into a ritual itself?
When will we return to seeing the sacred in ourselves and in those around us?
When do those bodies that are repeatedly exploited get to experience reverence and humanhood?
I hope my art can rise and maybe even answer some of these questions.
To learn more about my work and offer support you can check out my website -
salmathegiant.com and follow me on instagram @salmavir
Photography by Diggy Lloyd
