"For me painting is a conversation between abstract sensation and figurative representation,
and in revisiting the sites and experiences of these temples through the process of painting
in the studio, I enter into a process of building and re-building symbolic images in my own
and other's imagination. The temples seem to me to be places of 'workings out'…they are
sites of exorcism and inspiration, of belonging and despair, of solace and affirmation, and all
this achieved through engagement in a metaphysical process symbolized and encouraged
through a series of visual and architectural prompts. In this architecture I saw a human
endeavour to make sense, to deify, to rejoice, to understand. At times I hope painting can
allow for a similar project"
"Though my own experience of these temples is secular and subjective, I would like to think
that their metaphysical message - conveyed through the beauty of their construction and
decoration - is a simple and direct one that I can try to relate to through my practice as a
painter. This is best captured in an inscription I saw written in the Lakshmi Narayan temple
in New Delhi, a beautiful and simple description of the divine:
It is without and within all beings and constitutes both animate and inanimate creation.
By reason of its subtlety it is incomprehensible; it is both at hand and far away.
