Anarkali Check

How did you get into art and making?

Art was part of my life for ever with my earliest childhood memory being drawing and painting with my brother. I did not pursue art after school due to parental pressure to study a conventional subject at university but after 20 years in the corporate world, I took the plunge and focussed on art, retraining at City & Guilds School of Art and Design in London. I now also have a teaching studio with 2 business partners in West London

WHAT ART DO YOU LIKE TO MAKE?

Anything that is colourful with negative space

WHAT MATERIALS DO YOU USE?

Oil on canvas, wood or paper. Pastels on paper

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?

Artist, art teacher and art lover

What or who inspires and influences your work?

Anything and anyone. I observe what is around me and that inspiration from that. Egon Schiele is and artist I admire enormously

HOW HAVE YOU AND YOUR WORK CHANGED OVER TIME?

I used to cover whole canvases with colour and detail. Over the last couple of years I have left a lot of negative space in my work, putting details only on the subject matter

WHAT CHALLENGES HAVE YOU FACED ALONG THE WAY?

In the past, when I was working in the corporate world, it was definitely lack of time. Since I have focused on art full time, dependent on how many classes I teach at our studio, then again lack of time for my own practice. Sometimes there is a creative block or some self doubt or that I am not developing my work and that it is boring

WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR BIGGEST ACHIEVEMENT/S SO FAR? NO MATTER HOW BIG OR SMALL?

Being commissioned to do a painting for private clients

HOW DID IT FEEL TO EXPERIENCE THIS ACHIEVEMENT?

It felt like I was justified in leaving a highly paid job and focus on something I absolutely adore and that my work is liked and appreciated by others enough that they will part with good money to have my art in their home

WHAT DIFFICULTIES, DOUBTS OR FEARS DID YOU FACE AND HOW DID YOU OVERCOME THEM?

Whether I could actually make a living as an artist. As I have the studio business as well, I can earn a living but there is always the fear that there will not be enough clients who would want art classes and that I would never sell my work

WHAT OR WHO HAS HELPED YOU IN YOUR JOURNEY?

My family; My close circle of friends who have been my most loyal supporters of my new career and my art; My students at the studio

IF SOMEONE COULD WAVE A MAGIC WAND AND MAKE AMAZING THINGS HAPPEN FOR YOU, WHAT WOULD BE YOUR DREAM?

To be able to have a solo exhibition