My relationship with painting started early in my childhood. On family vacations, my brother and I always carried our painting utensils with us and our favorite subject to paint was landscapes. In school I was only fully present in art classes. However, at the age of fifteen, I left school and joined an Indian monastery located in Zürich, Switzerland. I had a burning desire to find the answers to the deeper questions in life, and I didn’t feel I was going to find them in the public schools. After fifteen years of learning and working in this institution, I struck out on my own and started painting professionally. To my own surprise I was immediately successful. Although my works were quite simple at first, I sold a lot of paintings. As there are many small banks and asset management companies in Zürich, I decided to phone them up and show my works. They commissioned many artworks for small entry halls and conference rooms. My works at that time were easily accessible, in order to make the workers and the customers feel good in their working environment.
After many years of painting commissioned works, I started painting according to my own artistic instincts. I have a split artistic personality. One side is inspired by nature, the earth, the sky, the oceans. The other is abstract forms, collages, interesting color combinations, pointed social commentaries, and using scavenged scrap materials. But most important to me is framing the subject in a way that is mindful of positive and negative space. I paint every day, and am fascinated a new each time I start my process. After all these years of painting, I still find it a great source of pleasure, excitement, devotion and fulfilment. My only desire is to execute the act of painting and my only ambition is to create a more beautiful world, decorated and ornamented with careful loving craft. Let’s create together!
