ABOUT ME
“The world is… the natural setting of, and field for, all my thoughts and all my explicit perceptions. Truth does not inhabit only the inner man, or more accurately, there is no inner man, man is in the world, and only in the world does he know himself. ”
― Maurice Merleau-PontyMY JOURNEY
Painting is my calling and spending the last three years immersed in the Scottish Highlands has only strengthened that call. From a very young age I have pursued and engaged with art in one form or the other. In 2012 I graduated with a first class honours in Animation and Digital Filmmaking from Picasso Animation College, New Delhi. Between 2013 and 2019, I worked in various capacities in the Indian Film and TV industry, as an Assistant Director, VFX artist and Production Associate. It wasn’t until my last Bollywood film project in 2019, that I realised I wasn’t quite satisfied with the creative output from my existing roles. The urge to dig deeper into my independent artistic practice grew stronger, and in 2020 I took a break to pursue a masters degree.
In midst of the pandemic, in September 2020, I moved to the UK to start my MFA at the University of Dundee. It was here that my life completely changed, as I explored and discovered new ways to expand my practice. After graduating from Dundee (with a distinction), I made my way into the world of theatre, working at the charming Pitlochry Festival Theatre as a Scenic Artist. From 2021 to early 2023, I spent majority of my time balancing my full-time job with my independent painting practice, undertaking commissions and illustration work on freelance basis.
During my time in the highlands, steeped in the magic of nature, I turned to painting the landscape from a deep spiritual connection. Newly based in London, I continue to explore my new found love of painting from nature, and attempt to develop work that is both unique and ambitious.
ARTISTIC PRACTICE & VISUAL LANGUAGE
My practice spans across the disciplines of painting, installation, printmaking and scenic art. The diverse experience from films, animation, graphics and theatre all feed into my work, making my practice both process and material led. I am fascinated by the daily life and commonplace objects, visuals and occurrences. My fascination for the landscape and the immediate environment comes from my complex relationship to homemaking – constantly relocating while simultaneously desiring to stay rooted.
Being in the landscape imbues me with great energy and sensitivity which I try to transport into my work. The resulting painterly pieces explore and embrace abstraction, movement and colour in the environment. I am an impatient painter and like to work on multiple ideas with a lot of momentum and urgency. Overlapping textures, layers, loose and expressive brushwork are all processes that help integrate the emotional experiences into my pictures. There are moments when a piece exists purely as a co-incidence or happening, highlighting the material’s voice, and the infinite possibilities or ways of coming together that shapes an individual’s lived experience.
I enjoy working with a range of mediums like pastels, watercolour, waterless lithography, mono prints and collagraphs, where the process of making is naturally visible in the finished work. During MFA I took to cardboard and working site-specifically. Found objects such as cardboard reconnected me to my childhood, my history of moving houses and the nature of human migration. Since then, I have continued to experiment with installation art using various forms of cardboard and packaging scavenged from skips and recycling bins.
Mottaket, Group Show at Alesund Art College, Norway
DJCAD Master’s Group show, Dundee
New Form’s of Exceptionalism, Online Symposium | Written work & Visual Response