About Me
“Sell your cleverness, purchase bewilderment”
- Rumi
Since the age of 5, I have been reflecting on my mortality. I vividly remember telling my best friend that I hope my parents marry each other again in there next life. He must of thought what the hell was I walking about. What kind of thought is that for a five year old. I’m sure he just ignored the comment and we went back to playing with our Star Wars action figures.
I have always been curious on the Why of life, especially why a Creator that is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent and which has infinite love and infinite mercy would create this physical experience where there is so much pain and suffering. As Albert Einstein once said, “I want to know god's thoughts-the rest are details.”
My immersion into the world of art has been sudden and unexpected. In 2018 at the age 45, I woke up one morning with this unexplained feeling that I need to start painting. The last time I picked up a paint brush was in elementary school. I have never studied art or taken an art class so Why this sudden feeling to paint. So I decided to visit the local hobby shop in London, England (where I am based) watched a couple of YouTube videos, and my journey into the world of art began.
The early days were difficult as painting can be a very lonely process as its only you, your feelings and thoughts, and a blank canvas. I was humbled as one of my first pieces titled Healing (which is inspired by Rumi’s quote “The wound is the place where the Light enters you”) won the Diamond Jubilee art competition in the canvas category and was showcased at an international arts festival in Lisbon, Portugal (illustrated below).
Over the past several years, my style has evolved focusing primarily on abstract and calligraphy utilising acrylic paint, mixed media (paste and gels) and fluid pouring techniques. I draw inspiration from the areas of music, fashion, literature, mysticism, and other calligraphy designers.
I would describe my works as Antevasin Art. Antevasin is a Sanskrit word meaning someone who lives on the border of two worlds (physical and transcendental). It is a visual representation of the spiritual side exploring the duality of existence and exploring areas such as free will, karma, after (before) life and Source (God) perspective.
His Highness the Aga Khan beautifully encapsulates the relationship between art and spirituality in this quote, “Does not the Qur’an challenge the artist, as much as the mystic, to go beyond the physical - the outward - so as to seek to unveil that which lies at the centre but gives life to the periphery? Is not a great work of art, like the ecstasy of the mystic, a gesture of the spirit, a stirring of the soul that comes from the attempt to experience a glimpse of, and an intimacy with, that which is ineffable and beyond being?”
In the end, what do I want to say with my art? Hopefully, my works ultimately will challenge the individual to explore their conditioning, explore “unchartered territories” and “awaken the individual from the illusion of separateness” .
To end on a lighter note, the writer Anita Moorjani once said “Life is not meant to be serious. Laughter is even more uplifting and healing than any form of prayer, meditation or chanting.” I completely agree. In this light, below is a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon on artist statements by Bill Watterson, July 15, 1995.
