Sanjay Vora's work is born of reflection, derived from a lived American life as well as a cultural heritage rooted in East Indian traditions and music. Born in New Jersey into a musical Indian family, both his music and art have been strongly influenced by his bicultural upbringing as well as the surrounding rural American landscapes of his childhood.

“Path to Paradise” refers both to the title of the largest painting and to the idea that memories are held as a kind of “paradise” embellished by the misty filters of remembrance that can make them even more compelling than they were at the time. Experiences, so crystal clear in the moment, can be difficult to hold on to as they recede into the past.

Vora navigates the space between past and present by creating a cataract-like veil between the image, (faithfully recreated from photographs) and the surface using acrylic medium in most of the works and shredded paper in the title image. These media obscure the original scene, while retrieving them subtly with small carved windows into the surface or by adding suggestive bits of color within the layers. The end result is dreamlike and abstracted with subtle clues that aim not to recreate the original scene, but to capture its meaning and tone.

In his own words, “My current bodies of work examine the fragility of the actual; the processing of our place in the now. The acknowledgement of time haunts, holds, and cuts through each painting as a structure and order, a system in place which continuously tests my eventual acceptance. Painted experiences and materials of association become connections as they intersect, live and pass through interstitial, transitional moments towards adulthood and endings--lost, found, dissected, excavated and/or reconstructed into sensations driven by comfort.”