Artist Statement
What I saw everywhere on my first day in Delhi was the marigold's brilliant orange, the flower they say never dies. I noticed it in the markets, in the color of the saris, as well as in the National Museum, where it often appears in the vast and wonderful collection of miniatures housed there. I was also moved by the pale, luminous greens that appear in the Mughal paintings. These colors, along with others that I observed and loved, appear in the watercolors that I did during my residency. Not a technique I usually use, but one that is quick to dry, these small, intimate paintings functioned as a kind of note taking for the visual feast I witnessed during my stay at Sanskriti.
The structures that appear in the watercolors are similar to those in my larger paintings, a complex topography of dots, lines, and quirky forms, that registered my response to the myriad streets in Delhi, the anarchy of the traffic and the tangle of the banyan tree's roots. Each of these daily sights made their way into my work and have enriched my visual vocabulary.