AntiiMuse: From college drop out to masked photographer making moves
The antithesis of a muse…
Meet AntiiMuse, the Dubai based artist who has been making faceless moves across the city with nothing more than a mask and a camera…
Despite carving out a niche as one of Dubai’s most intriguing Instagram personalities – the mysterious masked artist and photographer, AntiiMuse’s expat journey may be more relatable than you think.
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Staff is 86 copy
The Staff is 86
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Not and art work
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House of Yanos event
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House of Yanos event
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Community Service
The anonymous artist, moved to Dubai six years ago for a university course, with hopes of becoming an architect. A ‘plan B’ had to be hastily hashed out after one of his university professors told AntiiMuse that this wasn’t for him.
During the pandemic, AntiiMuse filled his time with watching point-of-view photography clips, where artists would take photos of people randomly in public along with street photography. “For obvious reasons in Dubai that isn’t possible, so I kind of fell into portrait photography. I like taking a moment in time and freezing it.” He then formally dropped out of university and became a full-time photographer. “I don’t create content for an audience, I know a lot of people would, but I do whatever I like, or think is cool and move from there.”
“I don’t know what it feels like to not know what you want to create”
When we talked to him about his inspiration, AntiiMuse – the artist “too lazy to learn Photoshop” – insisted that his creative process is very simple. “There will always be stuff to take pictures of. I don’t draw inspiration from things. I just do what I think would look cool and bring it to life.”
While on a shoot at JLT hotspot Soon Dubai, AntiiMuse learned that two of the chefs could breakdance and he knew he had to capture it. “It sounds like I’m being selfish, but I cater to my needs and what I like and I think that’s where the inspiration comes from.”
“It’s important to separate the artist from the art”
Keeping himself and AntiiMuse separate is very important for the artist. His trademark MF Doom mask became part of his disguise through a simple twist of fate.
AntiiMuse was asked to do a live recording of a podcast but was “dodging them” because he didn’t want his face shown. To help solve the anonymity dilemma, his brother suggested he buy a replica of the mask worn by the now-deceased British-American rapper, and “unless the Doom Empire comes at me, I’ll keep rocking the mask.”
But why ‘AntiiMuse?’ The genesis of the name comes from a friend’s response to his ex-girlfriend’s claims of being a source of inspiration. “Muse?” came the query. “She was more like an anti-muse”.
It was a lyric from one of his favourite artists – ‘pain sips for good art’ – that really breathed meaning into the moniker, “and looking back, if that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have gone in that direction at all.”
“It was chaos but it was so much fun and I’m so proud”
When he was starting out, AntiiMuse did a lot of, what he calls, community service. Photoshoots and work that is for his community and friends to create a portfolio.
One of his favourite shoots was Staff is 86 where “we took up the whole space of Papa in the V Hotel and just caused chaos, ate food in the kitchen, popped bottles behind the bar. It was so much fun”
“He saw flashes going off at the event but nobody was holding a camera”
When he’s out capturing shots, AntiiMuse is “heavy on candid”. He recalls an event, where one of the House of Yanos founders was searching the crowd to find the source of a series of flashes despite seeing nobody with a camera.
Eventually, after following the trail of illuminated breadcrumbs, he discovered AntiiMuse using the guerrilla photography technique, of quickly lifting a camera for a shot and then moving on to the next target. “I like things being organic, I like that what you get is what you get.”
Follow and get in touch with the artist at @antiimuse
Images: Supplied by AntiiMuse
