Most know M.I.A. (Mathangi Maya Arulpragasam) as a vibrant and outspoken pop artist who has infused international club hits with messages of political awareness, all the while helping to define the style of the ‘00s with eclectically blended musical genres and glittery neon fashions. Now, she's taking a turn in the spotlight as a visual artist: her instantly recognizable patterned-and-pixelated album art, collages, and photographs will be the subject of a monograph to be published by Rizzoli on October 23rd. The book focuses on her road from visual art student — she studied film at London’s Central Saint Martin’s — to international music star, charting the evolution of her aesthetic chronologically with each album to date, and showing how her visual art is inextricably linked to her music.

One image — a single elegant film still of a Tamil woman’s face, mid-conversation, spray painted on cardboard, and off-set by a tiger mid-stride atop a coat of radiant red paint — stands out as representing how visual art has shaped M.I.A.'s musical identity. Arulpragasam describes the history of the image in the first section of the Rizzoli book, saying, “The birth of M.I.A. as a concept stems from these stencil paintings. The single frame is part of a series that made a 3-minute video, which was accompanied by an interview with Nisa [the woman in the film still], during which she tells the story of what made her become a Freedom Bird.” She adds, “I was obsessed with her because she was just so beautiful – at the time of the video she was alive – she was really pretty and really innocent. She was the first face of M.I.A. when I start in on the art thing.”

Subsequent chapters (one dedicated to each of M.I.A.'s albums) are filled with collages of digitally manipulated images and textual slogans that relate to songs, like “Born Free,” or images of war, from Africa to the artist’s native Sri Lanka. The work shifts from stencils and collage to frames from M.I.A.’s music videos, many of these containing designs and art by the artist herself. Her voice is present throughout, providing a narrative back-story in each chapter that relates her artwork with her development both as a performer and artist.

ARTINFO reached out to her to ask her about her artwork, transitioning from visual art to music, and how changing technology has shaped what she does.

What inspired you to put this book together?

Just making the new album and the artworks. The three albums that came before were important to the story. You live through things and experience things and make stuff, but by the time I got to this point I felt like everything added up to something but it was important to see what that was in a chronological order.

What motivated your transition from (visual) fine art to music making?

It wasn’t something that I consciously chose, and music sort of just seemed like something I was trying in the beginning. The message was the same, but I just tried a different medium. It just happened that music was the one that got the most attention. I guess it’s the easiest to access. I don’t know why it happened – it’s weird.

At the time I was doing film and sidestepping into art because I couldn’t get a film made – due to loads of legal restrictions. Then, the music thing happened, I think because there were a lot of musicians around, and they were like, “Go on, you look like you could make music.” And they sort of forced me in to it.

How has your visual art background affected your music? What comes first? Does artwork lead to music or does music inspire your artwork?

Everything feeds together. What it does is it creates a little bubble for you, so whenever you’re doing something it makes complete sense to you when you’re in that space. You can see it, and you can feel it, and you can hear it, and you can touch it. It happens simultaneously in different forms, so it makes what you’re trying to do (and what you’re going through at the time) more coherent and more consistent because you can manifest it in different mediums. If that happens naturally, and if that happens in a very easy way, then I know I’m doing the right thing, and if it doesn’t then I’m not.