Behind the Work

Most people who want a commissioned piece of art never ask for one. Not because they don't want it. Because they're not sure how it works. I've been commissioned for forty years. Here's how it works with me.

Six paintings. Six women. And when you hold your phone up to any one of them, the work jumps off the canvas. The first augmented reality art collection in Saudi Arabia, built on the mathematical foundations of Islamic geometric art. Each piece a portrait. Each one alive.

A freshly laid band of yellow paint cutting across a grate in the street stopped me completely. No studio. No special equipment. Just a trained eye, a phone, and the decision to look at the ordinary differently. That moment became an Amazon Number 1 bestseller.

It was a freshly laid band of yellow paint intersecting a manhole cover. I had walked that street a hundred times. That day, something about the way the line cut across the grate demanded my attention. That moment became a book. And a way of seeing I can't un-learn.

For over 25 years I have lived between worlds. Outside my own culture long enough to see it objectively and subjectively. Living inside other cultures yet always viewing them from a perspective built from many worlds. That position gives you a particular kind of perspective.