Darshan's Biography (Artist Version)
Darshan loved drawing and painting from an early age. Her second grade class teacher was the first to recognize her unusual usage of colours during painting classes. He told her parents and they found an art teacher for her in the neighborhood. Having been born with vision impairment, Darshan has gone through much challenges to see and navigate the world through her eyes. Yet, knowing that she could use a different type of vision to "see," with rainbow colours and intuition, has helped her to find her way through life. Darshan's parents guided her to focus on developing the ability to see with heart's eyes instead of feeling sad about what she cannot perceive in the physical world. Darshan's love for art paralleled the development of trust that were experienced for inner visions and guidance. Later, after growing up, her two sisters were also there for emotional and technical support to help Darshan keep painting. In the last three decades, art exhibitions were held in Asia, North America and Europe such as in Canada, USA, Japan, Taiwan and England.
Darshan studied and acquired a bachelor of Fine Art in University of British Columbia. She came out of the university world feeling rather depressed and confused. The childhood dream to be an artist seemed too difficult in the world she lived in. Nevertheless, pressuring herself to be financially independent, aimlessly she wondered over through different creative disciplines such as design, fashion, architecture and 3D animation. She dropped out of most of the courses feeling lost as within those disciplines, she found little strength to create.
Life started to lighten up, when she met two Canadian painters, Paul Chizik and Lisa Visaje who devoted themselves to exploring the Old Masters' oil painting techniques. Their joy for painting rekindled Darshan's connection to colours and paintings. Darshan slowly stumbled her way out of creative blocks after the university and began to paint again. As she studied with Paul and Lisa, the painting methods of Old Masters such as Rembrandt and Raphael, she became fascinated by the possibility of portraiture. It was realized that a portrait may make aware to the people who are portrayed, their inborn beauty and positive attribute. Thus, in her late twenties, she mainly focused on creating commissioned portraits. Darshan has created over fifty portraits of people in all walks of lives. In the creative process of each portrait, much heart felt sharing and learning have taken place between the portrayed and the artist.
IMAGES: Portraits
IMAGES: Stone art
Due to pain in the right shoulder, Darshan stopped painting in her late thirties. Instead, artistic, therapeutic and spiritual movements such as Eurythmy, Spacial Dynamics, ballroom dances, Hula dance and Dances of Universal Peace were explored. During this time, she has worked with children with challenges through Steiner based NPO in Canada. After moving to Europe to join Eurythmy training in West Midland Eurythmy school, she married a man with deep appreciation towards art and music. She has given birth to her children who have been the constant inspirations in her life.