Passion Flower Painting

Even though I have exhibited my Art all over the world and have had the good fortune to travel and connect with some truly unique personalities, my life and my artistic journey have gone through some major dips and hardships. It all started when at the tender age of 11, I lost my father whom I loved deeply and was extremely attached too. Life brutally snatched him away and all I was left was a feeling of hollowness and a void within me that nothing could fill. For years I functioned on an auto pilot, mostly in a haze, doing the things I was expected to do and unable to make any sense of it all. Because reality was too difficult to handle, I would tell myself that my father lived in another far away city and some day I would see him again. It is in those times that I found my sanctuary in Art. I would take my colors and paint away my pain and confusion. I started questioning life and the meaning of existence. The deep existential questions like returning nightmares would keep knocking at doors of mind. Who am I ? Why am I here? Is this all there is to life? Is there life after death? Or is this all there is to it? As I sought the answers to these questions at the back of mind...my life was falling apart at the seams....I had slogged night and day like a manual laborer as a T-shirt artist to keep food on my table. It killed my soul which only wanted to paint and to connect, to find answers to my questions through my Art. And then finally after six years the day came, when I felt I was drowning and could breath no more....like the my very life was chocked out of me. That if I didn't stop now, I would be completely lost. I listened to my soul's calling... I closed shop and walked away from t-shirt painting and never looked back. A new life started, where I started expressing my search for this meaning of life through my paintings on canvases. I tried to connect with my true self and let it expresses itself truly without any interference from my mind. Every painting was like setting off on an adventure, not knowing where it would lead and how it would end. I would pick up colors intuitively and follow their lead without trying to impose any of my ideas on it. Cause I knew that painting was and is my meditation, where I would be guided to find true beauty and answers to life's questions. It was as if the process of painting was healing the deep wound within my soul and unveiling the Light within me.