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In my landscape paintings the effect I try to achieve is atmospheric and emotional rather than specific, focusing more on the light and impressions of a place than the actual location. I use heavily textured medium and intense colors on large-scale canvases which are abstracted in such a way so as to give the impression of something seen from far away through half-closed eyes. Recently I’ve been working with long horizontal formats which divide foreground and background and add to this sense of abstraction.

With my early large format pastels, my subject matter was always ephemeral - billowing clouds, reflections in water and lush gardens, which were a combination of childhood memories of my grandmother's garden in Alabama and my mother's garden in Ithaca, New York. There is a special quality to the heat of summer, particularly near the end of the day when objects seem to emanate light, rather than reflect it. These landscapes are non-specific, evoking a mood rather than a particular place, so that the viewers are reminded of their own memories, dreams and nostalgia for locations. The work was often pushed to the limits of abstraction to further this concept. Pastel epitomizes all the qualities of the present moment - spontaneity, vulnerability and vibrant colour.

I went through art school during the conceptual era which meant I had to teach myself to draw. It was overwhelming. Pen and ink is a question of building up a surface slowly with small marks. This makes it very forgiving. Mistakes are easily disguised. My first drawing was a salt shaker! I loved the meticulous meditative quality of pen and ink and I always return to it as a means to slow down time and my overly active mind. I consider it my meditation practice now as I start with a line and slowly create very subtle imaginary “air trees”. Often I write Sanskrit prayers in them and then disguise the words. My idea is that even without seeing the prayers the viewer might feel the vibrations.

Since childhood I have been fascinated with the creativity of primitive cultures. The mix of images, colours and repetitive patterns seem to flow in an unconscious and primal way to express emotions and tell stories. When I was a child there was nothing I liked to do more than make intricate interconnecting shapes and paint animals in strong colours. Recently this preoccupation has returned, and especially in these uncertain times, I am drawn more to this kind of expression than any other. I feel as though I am tapping into the collective unconscious or at least into that primal mark-making urge. By invoking the camouflage of insects or butterflies, my most recent work involves chairs that repeat the patterns of the canvases that accompany them, representing the witnesses for these stories. Sometimes hand coiled and-painted ceramics fulfill this function. I have also begun to incorporate prints as another element in order to create my own language and symbols.

The process of coilbuilding connects me with the storytelling of primitive cultures. The black underglaze that I use to design the white clay has a personal narrative that I am not always aware of until long after I have completed the design. The Prayer For The Planet installation is an ongoing work in progress consisting of 108 carved and pierced ceramic lights (representing the number of beads on an Indian prayer mala). Each one is hand built and made from earthenware. As an artist what interests me the most is beauty and imagination. Light is elemental; our eyes are always drawn to it. In the larger pieces, since the surface is like a bigger canvas, I can “draw” with light in varied patterns of holes and designs. My idea is to convey a world that is a cross between a fragile coral reef and a galaxy, thus representing the microcosm and the macrocosm.