Right from an early age, nature has fascinated me. The wild energy, the fecundity, the raw power as much as the beauty, the stillness, the grace stuck a chord in me. I saw this mostly in feminine terms and as I was growing up I could relate this to that special something that women seemed to be blessed with - the strong bond with nature which men mostly are cut off from. When I began to paint, this influence was pretty mush evident not only in the choice of subject but in all aspects of my artistic endeavour, the colors, the motifs, the themes… Most of the paintings I have done that comes under the Feminine Mystique category, by deliberate choice or not, incorporate personal experiences from my growing up years that took on new meaning within the ambit of the theme.

The Feminine Mystique is then an exploration of nature as exemplified in women not as a gender but as an integral aspect of life itself. Thematically, it opens up enormous possibilities and I have tried to interpret it employing common motifs that we can relate to easily. Each paining in this series reflects my idea of what constitutes the feminine mystique. Simple but sublime. That is what I seek to achieve through this.