NEELA PUSHPARAJ

www.watercolorsbyneela.com

Neela Pushparaj started painting at age 49 under the tutelage of Sarita Anne Cooke at the Summit Adult Education program. Following her advice, she attended W/C classes at du’ Cret in Plainfield, NJ as a part-time student. She then became passionately interested in painting watercolors and took multiple workshops in the following years.

She continued her career as a hospital pathologist while painting and pursuing art. She helped create an art gallery at the hospital and exhibited her work there. In addition, she has often donated her art for fundraising, both there and at the Rotary in NJ.

Her favorite technique is to add colors to damp paper and allow shapes to emerge by picking them out with negative painting. She uses color boldly in her work, including in her florals which range from semiabstract to sometimes totally abstract.

Many of her works are showcased at the St. Francis Hospital in Poughkeepsie, NY, and the radiology department of Atlantic City Medical Center, due to being chosen from a Statewide competition a few years ago. Some of her paintings are on display at FCGAdvisors, a local financial services firm in Chatham, NJ.

She has participated in multiple art residencies at the Scenic Hudson, Red Barn in Beacon, NY, and Poland. For the past several years, she has been the art director of a show called Woman-Art, which the Summit College Club runs for female artists of the NY-NJ-PA area. She has won awards in multiple venues for her watercolor paintings.