ARTIST STATEMENT

My work begins where language falters — at the edges of memory, dream, and imagination. I paint and draw to uncover what hides beneath the surface: shifting archetypes, shadowed narratives, and glimpses of something larger moving through us.

For years, that instinct expressed itself through the figure. Hyper-detailed graphite studies gave way to oil paintings on Belgian linen — portraits of migrant workers in Doha whose anonymity I wanted to undo, sandstorm paintings that stood for everything the region carries and conceals, nighttime cityscapes of neighborhoods disappearing under the pace of development. Living and working in Qatar since 2010 has shaped every part of my practice. The place asks questions that the studio tries to answer.

Over time, the representational fragments began to dissolve. Anatomy, landscape, and structure gave way to rhythmic fields of mark-making — gestural, layered, process-driven. What emerged were disrupted portals: visual, emotional, and psychological gateways that invite the viewer into spaces of mystery and transformation. Influenced by Jungian depth psychology and Csikszentmihalyi's notion of flow, I see each piece not as a fixed product but as a passage — a moment where chaos and coherence meet. Whether fractured portraits dissolving into abstraction or thresholds alive with unseen energy, these works are meditations on transition — between life and death, order and entropy, matter and energy.

My teaching and my research exist in a continuous loop. The studio feeds the classroom and the classroom sends me back to the studio with questions I hadn't thought to ask. Projects I develop for students — cyanotype processes, AI-assisted image generation, culturally responsive design — push my own material thinking in directions I wouldn't reach alone. That exchange is not incidental to my practice. It is the engine of it.

More recently, I have turned toward artificial intelligence — not as a replacement for the hand but as a way to expand what the hand can discover. Pioneering AI curriculum at VCUarts Qatar and presenting research at institutions across Education City has deepened my conviction that artists must be at the table when these technologies are being shaped.

Each piece is not an answer but an opening. A reminder that art's role is not to resolve mystery, but to keep it alive.