A question that I used to ask myself when I was a student in college was ‘What is it that I would like to paint and be passionate about it?’

While, I was grateful to my teachers for showing me the various techniques of painting, use of colour and how to use my surrounding environment as starting points for subject matter, I always felt that something was missing.

It wasn’t until many years later, after having children, when I was returning to my creativity in art that I discovered that I was at a loss for subject matter. Nothing gave me passion to create and this realisation brought me to a standstill. With sheer frustration and agitation I began to doodle and scribble. After some time, images and shapes began to emerge from this process and it felt as if they were appearing by magic. It was then that I began to work instinctively.

Slowly it dawned on me that while my teachers in college were wonderful in teaching me how to paint and draw inspiration from my external landscape, nobody had told me about my ‘internal’ landscape and how to access it. For me this was unchartered territory. This revelation has led me to now rely on my instinctual inner self for inspiration and subject matter. The beauty about this is that it is forever changing and is also an adventure.