Nia Musiba’s murals cover the four quadrants of Portland, Oregon. Odds are if you’ve tried to find parking on Mississippi street or Sandy boulevard or Portland State University campus, you’ve run into one of Musiba’s weighty figures. Stretched against swatches of flat, bold color, abstracted bodies entangle with prickly vines and spring-loaded flower petals. All of Musiba’s murals are unmistakably hers; rendered in a Black queer grammar that both celebrates and protects her subjects. While Musiba was gaining notoriety in the city as a muralist, the artist was steadily adapting their graphic design education to a fine arts practice.
I’ve been lucky enough to work with Musiba pretty regularly since 2020 and each time we catch up, Musiba is doing something new. Trying something. Experimenting. First, it was acrylic painting over sand-textured canvases, then small sculptures that expanded upon the geometric bodies they’re known for, and now, elaborate cut paper pieces. All of which build upon and complicate the Nia Musiba we know from their murals—there’s no boxing them in.
In January 2025, on the heels of the closing of their second solo exhibition, Unseasonably Warm at One Grand Gallery in Portland, and a week before they were set to embark on a journey home to Tanzania, I spoke with the artist about their expansive artistic practice, blurring the boundaries between art and design, and attempting to achieve creative autonomy. —Ella Ray
Ella Ray (ER): First I wanted to ask, are you back from your post holiday break? I saw your post on Instagram and I don’t want to break any “no work” rules.
Nia Musiba (NM): Physically, I am back in Portland. Mentally, I don’t know where I really am. I’m in a liminal space, which I’ll probably talk about more, because I’m going to be traveling two weeks exactly from today. I’m doing kind of a big international trip.
ER: May I ask where you’re going?
NM: I’m going to Tanzania for two weeks with my parents. That’s where my dad’s from and I have a cousin getting married.
ER: Okaaaaaay, international! That sounds exciting, but a lot to prepare for. I can imagine that there’s a lot of moving parts.
NM: Too many [laughs].
ER: We don’t have to talk about that!
Switching into interview-mode, we work together, somehow kind of regularly, maybe once every two years, but we never sit down and talk. So, I love this and I feel like we’ve kind of been circling each other for quite some time. I wanted to start by asking where you are in your artistic practice right now? What’s going on? How’s it feeling?
NM: That’s such a great question. I’m in a resting and building stage right now—this is how I feel after I have a solo show. After my show in 2022, I needed six months to figure my life out. Also, that January, I did my first ever solo travel and went to Mexico City for three weeks. I feel like I’m repeating the pattern of having a show in the fall and then in the winter doing this kind of transformative—I hope—trip.
I’m resting, and I’m thinking, and I’m connecting with my loved ones again and being a friend and a roommate and a partner. Less emphasis on being like a “capital A” artist. I’m not physically making anything right now. I really haven’t been painting much because I have a weird relationship to it, and I’m curious to see if I’m able to meet it with a new perspective after doing some traveling and connecting with family and myself again. Right after my trip I’m going to Caldera for my first in person artist residency.
ER: One, congratulations on going to Caldera and having that in person residency time to do whatever you want to do. I wish we had more opportunities to go away, incubate, fail, and try things. And two, even when we are away from our studios, or in my case, when I’m away from writing, we’re still doing it in our heads. So when you spoke about not physically producing work at this moment, I like to imagine that “everything else,” outside actually sitting down to make the art, is all the background work that comes before making things.
There’s really an overwhelming energy that we have to be making art all the time. And I’m happy to hear an artist say that they’re not technically making anything and they’re kind of just doing what needs to be done. I’m sure traveling will lead you down a road that you didn’t know you were going to go on, artistically.
NM: I’m joking but not joking when I say I feel like I’m embarking on a bit of a transformation as an artist. I’m also connecting with my parents in a way that I haven’t as an adult yet. I’m really making that transition from a child to like a person trying to have a relationship with other people that happen to be my parents.
I’m really looking forward to going to Tanzania. I haven’t been there since I was 15 and I wasn’t in an appreciative mindset then. Also, culturally, on the inside, Tanzanian art has been an influence for me, unconsciously.
ER: When you were speaking about transformation, it made me think of the cycles that I’ve seen you go through as an artist. When I was first introduced to your practice, you were making very large scale public artwork. The city of Portland was covered, and is covered, in Nia Musiba-made murals and billboards. Those pieces are very like “for the people,” or very like “for everyone’s eyes,” while your latest exhibition, Unseasonably Warm at One Grand Gallery, was so cozy. It was so insular, so intimate.
The works were indeed smaller. There were ceramic wall hangings, drawings, and collages. Viewers were asked to get close to the material; to be with it. That contradiction of scale in your body of work makes me excited. Your works can be so big, literally covering the sides of buildings, but there are also pieces that could fit in my hand. There’s something dynamic about that. Talk to me about the transition from big, city and state funded projects to making the kind of work that you did for your second solo exhibition.
NM: My trajectory as an artist was honestly unexpected. I always tell people that looking back, it just kind of happened. I was freshly 19 when I got my first mural opportunity. And I was also like “Oh, I’m a graphic designer! I don’t know how to paint, I don’t know how to make a mural!” But thankfully, through a lot of support from the community, and people believing in me, slowly I began to believe in myself.
Doing these larger projects at the beginning of my career, and at the beginning of my adulthood, I was just learning who I was as a kind of adult. I was coming to terms with my identity—my blackness, my queerness, my relationship to gender and sexuality. At the same time, making these really big public works that are in some ways a statement about those identities. I formed this art practice in such a public way. It was interesting and I feel really grateful for it, but now, I have a desire to make art for myself.
To explore myself, like you were saying, in a more intimate way. Also, I wanted to show people my range, because I did feel boxed in for a minute as a muralist. I felt like I was very much known for one thing. Plus getting up there [laughs]. There was a time where I was like, “Oh, my god, please, give me the opportunity to do something else.” I wanted, and want, the opportunity to try all these other mediums that are calling to me, but when art is also work, it’s complicated.
E: Thank you for answering that. It’s a really odd thing to navigate getting boxed in, especially unintentionally. I appreciate that you brought up the physical labor of making murals. Let’s shout out muralists for the incredible labor that goes into that practice.
NM: Yeah! Shoutout muralists!
ER: The idea that you’re on a regular cycle of mulling over your artistic identity is very inspiring to me. I like to hear a contemporary artist speak about that out loud, because I think it happens with everyone, but for some reason we have to be hush hush about entering new phases or that we want to try new things. I feel like we’re not really allowed to admit that. So it’s nice to hear someone forthrightly explain that they love what they do, but they’d like to do something else—to me that’s a kind of creative autonomy.
Early in the answer to this question, you said that you felt more like a designer than an artist when you initially started a fine arts practice. Do you still see your design practice separate from your studio practice?
NM: I mean…I’m really grateful I went to design school for several reasons. One of them being the people, the community, and the connections. It’s really cool to have an art background that’s not informed by “The Arts.” Design school is art school, but for me, I didn’t have a studio practice yet. But I do feel like my approach to art is really design oriented. Especially how I solve things.
ER: Say more about solving things as it pertains to making art.
NM: Whether it’s a good or bad thing, I approach composition from a design lens and colors from a design lens. Even the audience a little bit. Sometimes it gets in the way, but also, for me, thinking this way is really fun. When I started as a muralist, I was someone who was just learning how to use Adobe Illustrator—thinking in flat fields of colors. Shapes were thought of as full of flat color. And that really came through in my original mural style.
Flat colors are shapes influenced in my paintings and transformed my practice. Now working with cut paper, it’s like the same thing, like I’m cutting shapes out of colors because that’s how my brain works. I’m not really thinking in lines as much as maybe others would. I honestly used to be insecure about it, because I felt like I was definitely a designer, maybe an illustrator, but not an artist. But they’re so intertwined and now I couldn’t really pull them apart if I wanted to. My creative process really feels intertwined.
ER: Getting people to even see you as an artist, when you’re a Black queer person, when you’re a multiply marginalized person, is such a strange game. I like the idea of embracing a boundarylessness or blurriness when it comes to what we do. Who is to tell you whether or not you are making art?
NM: We should all have the freedom to embrace whatever definitions feel like they’re serving us. I am doing creative projects all the time. Some of its work, some of its play, some of its fun, some of its community building.
ER: Not everything needs to be clearly defined at every waking moment. And maybe part of this transition that you’re going through is allowing that to be what it needs to be right now.
NM: Usually I need everything clearly lined out for me. Like, I need definition. Give me the context, give me the meaning of everything. It’s a nice challenge and a nice shift for myself to be in this undefined space.
ER: While you didn’t have one before, now you have a robust studio practice. Talk me through your studio routine. Give me insight into the environment your works are made in and the brass tacks of your art making habits.
NM: One of my big goals is figuring out how I like to work and if that’s even a consistent thing or if it changes from season to season and project to project. Typically, my studio practice looks like I’m up here [points to brain] thinking for so long, maybe sketching a little, and then it all just kind of comes out in like a burst. Really fast and chaotic. I was thinking about Unseasonably Warm for so long, maybe about two years, and when I met with Jordan and Lusi from One Grand Gallery I didn’t have anything to show them, but I knew exactly what I was going to make.
Plus, I like being around others when I make art. It feels safe and motivating, but it has to be the right people.
ER: I am similarly trying to learn my own artistic habits instead of trying to fit it into spaces, environments, individuals, relationships, that don’t work. I feel like I’m old enough to know what I need to make my work. I wish us the best of luck!
NM: Wow, look at us!
ER: Right!
I made a vow to never ask an artist what they’re working on next because it makes my skin crawl and when people ask me, my brain goes blank! So to wrap us up, I want to ask you what’s creatively inspiring you lately?
NM: I am feeling jazzed by a lot of things. Honestly, I’m feeling jazzed by the sun shining these days. I am jazzed about this trip that I’m taking. My dad is a bit of a local celebrity when we go to Tanzania. Everyone’s his brother, everyone’s his sister, I love it. Seeing him in his element is inspiring. I was talking about wanting to learn how to paint with and create natural pigments. And he is taking me to see some cave paintings in Tanzania. Oh! And I’m getting my hair braided soon. That’s always inspiring.
Nia Musiba: Unseasonably Warm
One Grand Gallery, Portland, OR
Exhibition closed in 2024