Hello and thank you for visiting my website

 

As a child I was intent on attending Art School as it was called then, but due to my cultural upbringing it wasn’t something that females were allowed to do .

So after many years of forging my own learning path of attending evening classes and workshops in the UK and Australia in drawing , oil and acrylic painting , weaving, spinning, ceramics  , printmaking and a couple of TAFE courses I think that I have finally got to the point of thinking that I am beginning to get there, especially after being selected as a finalist in the Ravenswood 2025 Australian Womens Art Prize.

 

I  am of Indian Sikh heritage, part of the post-partition diaspora that settled in post- war Britain. Born in the early 1950’s my generation is one of the first ‘waves’ of multiculturalism in the United Kingdom. England, particularly the industrial midlands where I grew up had been bombed heavily, it was very drab, grey and  A-tonal, the only splashes of colour seen was among the Indian migrants and was often commented upon by the English. The England of food rations, unfamiliar local ingredients and social customs, language and the landscape was alien to my family

In my late teens I felt more ‘western’ and held strong  feminist values that sat uncomfortably within my cultural heritage which was a factor in emigrating to Australia in 1981 with my  partner.

 

My art making has a strong and visceral sense of colour and my works are infused with rich, highly saturated use of unorthodox colour combinations, an occasional glimpse of gold,  gestural brushmarks evoking hand made textiles, traditional embroidery and stitchwork of household domestic items,  henna wedding patterns and twenty two carat gold filigree jewellery which I find difficult to resist incorporating as an an indelible nod to my cultural heritage.

Colours are softly layered and overlapping, creating  a sense of calm and dynamism at  the same time.  The art works are often non -representational, gestural and energetic , referencing the built environment, human-curated nature and the Australian landscape.

 

My work speaks of cross-cultural resiliency, strength, female knowledge, the psyche, spirituality and  includes references of my  lived experience’s of tensions,  collisions and frissons pushing up against boundaries including self- imposed and the need to step away from cultural and gendered norms.  

The expectations of cultural heritage and diversity for a first generation in a new homeland and the energy force of East meeting West has resulted in me being on a continual quest that asks the questions and searches for answers as to what is possible and/or permissible on the surface of a fresh new canvas that I meet .

 

CV

December 2015: Diploma in Visual Arts [Distinction] Sydney St George TAFE .

December 1993:  Fabric  Design and Silkscreen Printing East Sydney TAFE

1975/7 Diploma Occupational Therapy , Oxford UK.

included ‘foundation studies of art making’ which led to a long career working with hospitalized Adolescents and Adults in a range of medical settings in Australia and UK .

 

PRIZES

June 2025: Finalist Ravenswood Womens Art Prize -Emerging.

October 2024: Shortlisted Basil Sellers Art Prize 2024 ‘H20 It’s Precious’.

November 2015:TAFE Sydney Encouragement Award -Outstanding Performance.

 

EXHIBITIONS

Dec 2024: Waverley Woollahra Art School  yearly show

May 2024: Soho Studio -Group Show ‘Towards Abstraction’.

Dec 2023: Waverley Woollahra Art School yearly show.

Dec 2022: Waverley Woollahra Art School yearly show.

Dec 2015: The Muse Sydney TAFE Ultimo Graduation show

Dec 1997: East Sydney TAFE Fashion and Design  Graduation show.

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