As a young art student at the Sir JJ School of Art in India, Shobha Adhikari Wagley was so affected by the misery of Mumbai's homeless and slum dwellers, she says her own perspective on life changed permanently. The artist's new show, titled Sense Awareness, showcases new works in her distinctive, constantly evolving semi-figurative style.

"You see life and something clicks, you get inspired," says Wagley, whose paintings are said to explore the impact a state of mind can have on the senses. Wagley says it took her seven years to refine this idea and develop a style and techniques that helped her explore the connection between patterns of thinking and behaviour. She is especially fascinated by how the mind can be manipulated.

Wagley is first and foremost an artist, not an activist or spiritual leader, but she says she hopes her work can help people become self-aware, and realise how destructive ways of thinking can lead to abusive actions, and the mind of a single person can be dangerous to millions of people around him.

Wagley shot to critical acclaim in 1994, when her solo exhibition in the UK garnered raves for paintings such as Sense's Awareness, and Inner Reality. She has had solo shows in the USA, Japan and, of course, Kathmandu, and represented Nepal in group exhibitions in India, Tibet, Bangladesh, Korea, Japan, and France. Her paintings are in permanent collections at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in Japan and the Birendra Contemporary Art Museum in Kathmandu, and in private Nepali and foreign collections in ten countries.

"I still feel that Nepalis need to be more exposed to different kinds of art, and challenged by styles that they are unfamiliar with," Wagley says. Her new exhibition, which opens on 12 November, at Imago Dei Caf? in Nag Pokhari, will do just that.

Naresh Newar