Ardhanarishvara Print

Art is taking credit for what nature does by itself. My personal journey into painting started some twenty eight years ago, early 1990s, that was a time when I went about looking with curiosity, the works of the great masters in the craft, knowing well then that I may never reach their levels of skill but I tried my hand, self trained, bit by bit, spending time trying to make small improvements. I was inspired to explore the parallels between techniques art uses and those that scientists use to distill truth and subsequent insights helped me decipher and appreciate the abstract as a way to distill the essence about a subject — where elements are included not as visual reproductions of objects, but as references or clues on how to conceptualize objects. In describing the world I see, I tried not only to dismantle many of the building blocks of a conventional visual interpretation, but eliminating perspective and holistic depiction, along the way, voiding some of the foundations on which visual interpretation is based — taunting the observer to sift through the work for links between line segments, for recognizable contours and objects to reveal from it. After being at it for a few years, sometime in the later 1990s I hit a block, the inspiration wasn’t there anymore. Took more than a decade long break whilst other distractions kept me busy. Sometime in 2015, A spontaneous calling got me figuring out that the fire inside was slowly turning to ash., was left wondering where that creative side had gone – I had consciously allowed whatever little of creativity that was within to become a distant memory as that pesky thing called everyday life got in the way — I was, back then searching for inspiration from other pursuits. “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working” – Pablo Picasso. This phrase pretty much summed up my predicament – in order to feel inspired, I needed to be back at the game ! AND so, I found that reset button. I began painting again, to find myself. I began to draw, to light up the path out of darkness. I began to paint to rediscover the craft. I began to draw to hear the colours of the voices from within. I now paint to see what I imagine. I draw because the voice of my soul speaks a different language that needs a canvas to be heard. I paint dreams out of what may become a nightmare if left undone. I draw to discover what is inside.