Hi Folks!
2026 is around the corner and I hope that you are enjoying the Holiday season and staying warm. It was a cold few weeks out here in Alberta!
Since this newsletter is coming at the end of the year, it is time for some reflections on 2025. Some highlights include
1. A group exhibition at LL Contemporary alongside some wonderful artists:
2. Participating in the prestigious Art with Heart Auction
Where my piece received a matching donation of up to $3,000 from the Shevlen Family Foundation and sold above asking!
3. Moving into my new studio!
Book a studio visit with me here!
Some Updates on my new series
In my last blog, I hinted about a new series. My work so far has been deeply influenced by poetry and classical Indian literature but this new series will be different.
Inspired by Salman Rushdie's lectures on storytelling, Ive decided to approach this series like Im writing a novel.
The first step is to define the boundaries by deciding where it takes place. I'm choosing the locations through the depth of my emotional connection to them, such as a library or a street I visited in a daydream.
Another tip was to write based on what you know, but to expand what you know. My earlier series was grounded in familiar territory, but in 2025 I wanted to push beyond it. Following the ancient Indian storytelling tradition of weaving multiple storylines, I have been searching for new stories this year by travelling alone to unfamiliar places. My neighbour’s father took me to a plot of land in Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan, where he grew up, and I met his childhood friend, the celebrated Canadian author Thelma Poirier. She invited me into her home and read me her poetry:
“I can hear your joy, your pain, purple berries
You drop them in your pail,
filling it again, again
At birth
I was not your sister
Now I am”
The next tip was specific to the magic realism genre, which is what I am working toward. It emphasized that any surreal elements must make sense and contribute to advancing the narrative or its themes.
That's all I will reveal for now! Stay tuned to see how it materializes.
Notes from the Underground (1864) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky