Oil paintings to capture beautiful landscapes that build memories    

"We, human beings, are intricately and delicately embedded within worldly and celestial beauty. We experience and treasure the dynamic nature of diurnal and seasonal changes that surround us. Throughout our lives we develop imaginative surreal impressions seeded from our special experiences with immediate surroundings and landscapes. We leave a mark on everything we touch and in turn, it becomes a part of our own history. Each one of us remembers either an old tree that we used to climb, a creek that used to run through our town, or some other earthly wonder that brought us unimaginable joy and left an everlasting impression in our memories. Inevitably we also leave a traceable mark on our natural surroundings. Radiometric dating suggests the oldest human ancestor, Ardi, lived 4.4 million years ago in Ethiopia's Afar desert. The oldestknown human footprints of our ancestors who walked upright 1.7 million years ago are present in what was once a muddy soil in northern Kenya. Human-made materials, 2.6 million years old flint tools and 18,000 years old pottery, were left scattered in the ancient landscapes. The world's oldest art is thought to be the 70,000 year old red ochre-pigment markings excavated at Blombos cave in South Africa. As an artist and a scientist, I try to showcase the close relationship between humans and nature. Through oil impressions I attempt to show the extraordinary synergy between man-made structures within natural landscapes, or the indubitably positive impact of our decisions to preserve natural landscapes. These wondrous images that surround our lives now will be forced to evolve with ecological, environmental, and socio-economic changes in the future. I wish to leave a mix of oil colored brush strokes on canvas for people in the future, to show them where we lived and what we did to preserve our beautiful landscapes." – Rajnish.

Rajnish started oil painting in 1984 in an extracurricular fine-art course in St. Xavier's high school in Delhi, India. Rajnish didn't paint for over 20 years while developing his career in science. He has a Ph.D. in plant molecular biology from Purdue University and he did his post-doctoral work at the University of California, Berkeley. He has published several scientific articles and specializes in how light influences plant growth and development. He started painting again in 2007. Recently, Rajnish moved to Castro Valley and is interested in promoting awareness and appreciation of the delicate balance between nature and human sustainability through art and science