ARTIST INTERVIEW – NATASHA PATEL

Meditative – I left Los Angeles to move back in with my folks when I was 28. I left behind some toxic people which spurred depression in my late 20’s. I found fluid art through some youtube videos and there began my journey into learning the techniques of fluid art and abstracts. It became an incredibly meditative process for me, and throughout the years painting has helped me tap into my intuition and has taught me patience. It’s also allowed me to dive deeper into my spirituality by immersing myself with nature, where most of my inspiration comes from.

Creating has always been a big part of my life, I grew up with an artistic mother who taught herself oil painting as a temporary escape from the everyday trials and tribulations of raising 3 children. When my siblings and I were young, she instilled in us that design and art are a form of creative self-expression, something we can utilize to embrace our full potential. Seeing the immense joy and meditative effect she got from locking herself in her art studio for a few hours a week, paired with the joy of her clients when they received one of her paintings, is something that has always stuck with me. Art is an exchange of energy, and is something I hope to continue the legacy of.

I started off doing portrait sketches when I was a teenager, but stopped creating altogether when I started college. Exams and the immense pressure to do well and find a successful career path took over, which is also when anxiety kicked in full gear. If you asked me back then about it, I would have denied it, but as I got older I was able to identify it for what it was, anxiety and depression in my 20’s. I no longer had a creative outlet to express myself and was completely lost. I reached rock bottom at 28 and moved back in with my folks, which is where I rediscovered my love of creating. That took a major pause again when I was headhunted into a startup as a Director last year, which took all of my bandwidth. I ended up leaving that job because it was toxic, male dominated, and abusive, so I called it quits last December and am pursuing being a creative full time.  I currently work out of my parents garage and am casually browsing spaces for rent so I can move onto creating larger scale abstracts.

I love working with fluid acrylics, inks, spray paints, glass paints, pens and markers. I learned paint pouring through some Youtube videos in 2018, and have been gradually learning and adding more abstract techniques to my arsenal. The science behind fluid acrylics is what drew me in, the fact that there is science behind it is fascinating to me, being an environmental science major. The aesthetic effects of fluid acrylics is driven by the Rayleigh-Taylor instability, which is when fluids of different densities interact with each other, similar to how oil and water react with each other.

Tell us about that. Right now nature has been a huge source of inspiration. I went to Utah in January and fully immersed myself in the national parks there, and my friend got us permits to hike The Wave. The Wave is an incredible geological marvel believed to date back to the Jurassic period, when prevailing winds pushed the sandy desert dunes across the sandstone, etching it, and water runoff deposited chemicals such as manganese and iron, giving it the rich orangey red color we see today. I came back from that trip inspired and pushed myself to create a new series based on my visit to The Wave. The trial and error learned from that series is actually what has shaped my current style today.

I think there’s always hesitation and fear when sharing your art with a new person, because art truly is a reflection of your soul. If there’s anything I want people to take away from my art, it’s joy. If I can make something that brightens up someone’s day, then that’s what I will continue to do.

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https://artlanapaux.com/