Statement:

My work strives to reflect a sense of solitude and continuity found in the West Coast landscape. I try to push away the urbanity of our daily lives and produce a single moment of time, as if we are the mountains witnessing light converge with the ocean.

I relate to the Romantic period of painting that attempted to escape the pressures of urban sprawl, industry and a Rococo style of consumerism. My main influences come from the meditative colour panels of Mark Rothko and by J.M.W. Turner’s emotive landscapes.

I use a layered technique where the medium is just as important as the paint itself. I reduce the landscape until only colour, basic form and light are left and then I search for the quiet impact of solitude.

Biography:

I began playing with oil paints when I was eleven years old. I vividly remember the way the light seemed to shine from the paint. Although I have experimented with many different mediums and styles, nothing has quite enthralled me as much as oils.

I grew up on the West Coast, but I spent many summers along the lakeshores of New Hampshire. In stark contrast, my ethnic heritage is Afghan Canadian, which has always seemed oddly out of place. Afghanistan has influenced my painting by inspiring me to search for stillness and beauty even if the landscape is foreboding.

I studied basic drawing and painting at Emily Carr and UBC, but gained most of my education by visiting galleries, attending art shows and most importantly, experimenting with oils on my own.