Biography

As a woman, artist, and mother, I work to create harmony by expressing the universality of humanity through paintings, sculpture, and calligraphy. At birth I was given the life-defining challenge of a left hand without fingers. After graduating in Fine Arts from Maharaja Sayajirao University in Baroda, India, I lived and worked in Iran and Kuwait before landing at Pennsylvania USA in 1987.

As a visual artist I have had 40 plus solo shows nationally and internationally and have won several prestigious awards including the East Bay Community’s Fund for Artists in 2012 and 2014 and 2020. The City of Berkeley’s Individual Artist Grant Award in 2014, 2015, and 2016. I have public art pieces on display in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and San Diego, California and I have also written and published five books on my art and poetry including my recent with ecological consciousness from Quranic verses “Our Earth: Embracing All Communities.”

Artist Statement

My works are lyrical, spiritual, figurative, and calligraphic. My story begins with line and through this continuous line I am trying to connect humanity, soil, and soul.

Through my new series “Mycelial Flow” I found myself immersing myself in deeper knowledge to find remedies to save our planet and its ecosystems. I have discovered Mycelia- the vegetative part of a fungus, consisting of a network of fine white filaments. A new ray of hope is rising from the mushrooms and underground network of Mycelia to regenerate, activate, and heal the damaged state of our environment. Through my explorations in the realm of these underground entangled life-giving networks, creating visual images of connections and collaborations satisfies my soul and I hope to bring humanity together with lessons learnt form Nature

The lines I create represent the spiritual energy that emanates from a soul. Arabic Calligraphy, miniatures, and the folk art continue to influence my work today. I have tried to bring together Eastern spirituality and Western techniques of painting learned over the years. Through the contrasting elements in my work, I yearn and search for unity balance.

My method is a physical and meditative process that fills each canvas with moving lines and multi-layered textures. For me creating art means getting physically involved with the piece: scratching, sanding, layering materials like paper, rope, modeling paste, paper-mache or copper plate, and embroidering with pen and ink. I apply thin layers of acrylic color in between adding textures and this working process brings out subliminal images.