The act of painting for me is a 360-degree exercise. It allows meditative time, a structured discipline, and immense personal gratification. Nature for me has been the primal force.

Man’s entry into these visual-scapes becomes deferential, and nature yields to such transgressions with benign grace.

For me, experiences are episodic—threaded together by a language and personalized through memories, beliefs, and values. My works are reflective of distinct phases of my life, each a separate chapter of an ongoing odyssey.

Works featured in this feasts-themed Prairie Schooner Fusion are spread over a time period spanning almost fifteen years of my artistic trajectory. Since my works are autobiographical in content, family, home, food, and feasting around the dining table have consistently appeared in my work over the years.

Some works are ultrasound images of my yet-to-be-born children being nurtured in their mother’s womb; others have platters in the shape of my family members, pizzas, and even landscapes. A few works show migrations of birds and animals to lands where weather and food is in abundance.

The very recent visuals take us through a chapter of my life where I am seen juggling between the roles of a professional artist and homemaker. One such work is an installation with an egg and a small feather titled “Home…Soar…Skies.” It takes one to the pre-birth nurturing that the yet-to-be-born receives as a life force. The small feather placed right next to the porcelain white egg silently speaks of the flight of the once-nurtured.

Every time I drop a ball among the many “Manishas” I am juggling with, a new process of re-calibration begins for me to get back to my center, the egg.

My works take you through my personal spaces, among which home (and therefore food) has played an important motif.