The Performer Painting

I am a painter based in York, UK. I was born in India and lived there until 2000 at which point I left the country. I lived in Alicante and Mexico City for the next six years. My daughter was born in 2005 and the following year I moved to York. I recently graduated with BA (First Class Hons) in Contemporary Fine Art by University of Leeds. My paintings feel like pages in my diary through which I explore everyday feelings associated with the experiences of relationships to the self, other, objects. Recently I have developed an awareness of my life- long love for collecting folk art and my paintings currently express mental maps of these collections. I use acrylics and oils to work in an intuitive and playful way exploring their materiality and juxtaposing thick paint with thin to create an interesting contrast on the surfaces of my paintings. My chosen palette consists of pastel shades as I see them as colours which offer a quiet and contemplative mood to the viewer’s eye. Sometimes I change this to livelier colours depending on the mood in the painting I am working on. I think of Amadeo Modigliani, Gwen John, Peter Doig, Winifred Nicholson, Henri Matisse, Elzabeth Blackadder, amongst many others when I work. I prefer to let the viewer give meaning to my work in time and space; after all, I am of the view that what a piece of work means to me keeps changing.