In my work I am always wrestling with the spiritual and the physical. The physicality of clay as a material: heavy, dense, and fragile. It represents the earth. It is the earth. I come along and re-manifest it into a figurative form that it resists at first and then accepts. How to fuse all this physicality with the integral parts of my innermost self is a constant challenge. How do I place within its physical boundaries the deepest meanings I carry with me for which no words can express? Making my work, the very process, is wherein lies the greatest meaning. There are no sketches, no models. I start with a notion, an inkling of where I want to go. That is when I commence, taking my past experiences, travels, affections and memories with me. The figure appears, at first very crude and rough, in pieces and parts, and then it starts to become visible and more refined. The process, which begins as purely laborious tedium, wedging and coiling, grows into slower, more deliberate decisions and meditative contemplations as the piece approaches completion.
Several themes have emerged in my work, often related to contemporary or personal events. For example, in my "Bhairava" series, I decided to leave the pieces disconnected. Bhairava is the most destructive manifestation of the Hindu god Shiva. The content within the form and on the surface is about the notion of disconnections. The surface is about disorder, chaos and war on both of these pieces. The limbs are incomplete and the bodies are disconnected. My original intent was to reconnect the first of these figures once it was complete. Upon examination and after several opinions I decided to leave them disconnected, and have them displayed differently yet in close proximity to each other.
In other works, I usually attempt to incorporate paradoxical spiritual and physical ideas. For example a figure may be in a complex yogic posture yet have surfaces relating to the very banal or vice versa. I usually incorporate themes of Eastern philosophy-(of Buddhism and Sikhism- both of which have played a role in my life since I was a child) and my personal experiences and responses to the world around me.
