Jyoti Desai

Artist Statement

After returning to painting in recent years, I embraced a more intuitive and organic approach to abstraction. My work combines bold, high-contrast compositions with vibrant color inspired by Indian textiles and visual traditions. Through layering, scraping, and reworking the surface, I create paintings that reveal traces of their own making, allowing history, accident, and intention to coexist.

A lifelong passion for dancing has become central to my studio practice. The rhythm, balance, improvisation, and physical responsiveness required in dance directly inform my approach to paint. Sweeping gestures, shifts in tempo, and moments of pause echo the movements of the body in motion. Rather than illustrating dance, the paintings translate its energy and dynamism into visual form.

By working between structure and spontaneity, control and release, I create abstract paintings that are rooted in movement, color, and the physical experience of making.