The Island Chief receives a once in a life time opportunity to sit down with the popular local artist, Hussain Ihfal Ahmed better known by his alias iphpha. Iphpa produces many different forms of art and has been an extremely expressive artist.

We start of by asking him about how he first ventured into art. He explained by telling us about how he's always loved art and had always been doing art even from a young age.

"I found my passion for art during my days at school and began to really develop it. Even from the age of 10 I was already interested in art. After my O Levels in 1999 I joined a local souvenir shop where I did tons of work for tourists visit Male. I have produced commercial art work for tourists for more than 12 years now."

"I produce from commercial art work coffee art. I have a special interest in Visual art especially for the fine arts."

Learning more about him, I then ask Iphpa about his most well received work

"I always try to express something though my work, to leave viewers with some sort of message. This has a tendency to impress my audience. That said my Last solo exhibition was in August 2016, for which I used coffee as a medium. My work with coffee is always very well received. I look forward to sharing my underwater paintings soon for my coming exhibition and am confident that people will enjoy it."

"My coffee art was so well received I went on to host an exhibition in the UAE at Sarjah where I had an audience with some of the sultans of the country and was personally asked to make a painting of them as well. This was a really exceptional moment in my career"

Intrigued by his underwater painting I ask him to elaborate more on his coming exhibition and about his underwater paintings.

"At present I am preparing for my third solo exhibition which will take place on February 5th 2018. This exhibition will feature a series of paintings I completed underwater. The Exhibition will be titled "AZZURROACQUA" which means "Blue Water" in Italian language. This name was given my Italian friend.

"My upcoming art event is my 3rd solo exhibition in National Art Gallery. I hope this will be one of the best exhibitions in Maldives. This art exhibition is different from other exhibitions as the paintings have actually been painted underwater. The paintings draw attention to the pressing and urgent issues of climate change and sea level rise which threaten the very existence of the Maldives."

Is there a video of your work, How did you get the inspiration for this

"If you look around Facebook I have uploaded a video of myself completing one of the paintings underwater but its only a tease I am working on Dhivehi Video song which will be released for the exhibition around January 18th. The song is also based on climate change & sea level rise. It will be uploaded in YouTube Channel and hope it goes well."

 He begins telling us about how he got the idea to complete his underwater paintings.

 "With the help of my diver friends who were working at Blue Horizon Dive Centre in Vaavu Atoll Thinadhoo Island, I made my first painting underwater in 2015."

"Later this year in March, I made 8 paintings underwater in 8 different locations in Thinadhoo Island. I spent about 1 hour on each painting. The idea of attempting this first came in 2010 after seeing Alexander Belozo from Ukraine do something similar. Actually he was the first artist to paint underwater. He inspired and made me think, Hey! I am From the Maldives a country known worldwide for the beauty of its underwater coral reefs. Its quite an achievement to say that I am the first Asian to do a painting underwater."

Given that iphpha has been in the art industry for a very long time, I decide to ask him about his views for the future of art in the Maldives. 

"I believe that the future of art in the Maldives is purely in our hands. Our community is small and we don't have many art buyers or sellers. That said if we don't always have private galleries to showcase our work, we can start to build a good and responsible art community and work together to provide them with gallery spaces, find sponsors and much more. "

"The Maldives is filled with talent as far as art goes and It is undeniably a historic part of our very culture and roots."

Noticing the troubles an artist goes through in the Maldives I ask iphpha to dwell deeper into the challenges that an artist faces

"To fine artists, there are lots of challenges in Maldives. Marketing, art material, gallery space, even we don't have an academy or an institute to study. Finding the right market and platform to sell and showcase my work is one of the biggest challenges that I face now. Not to mention finding a space to actually produce and do work.

Concluding our most interesting conversation I ask about ipphas dreams for the future and to share some motivational words with us.

"My dream goal to future is to become an Artist. I still believe I am not an Artist. My favourite artists are in Renaissance period. Rembrandt and Caravaggio. Favourite art movement is impressionism. Vincent Van Gogh is also one of my favourite."

"I don't have my own art quote. French artist Edgar Degas says, Art is not what you see, but what you make others see."