Vijaya Sen carries with her a small notebook, unassuming but once opened it shows a window to the world around us.
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It's filled with vivid sketches, most of people captured going their daily tasks, the menial things made compelling.
Sen points to pictures of people in cafes and those on a train - the fleeting moments filled with so much detail.
Art has been a part of Sen's life since she was young. Her late father, Dhrubajyoti Sen was an artist and her greatest inspiration.
"I've been doing drawings since I was little ... before school and at school, basically it has been my life doing drawings," she says.
"My dad did a lot of sketches and he taught himself."
Sen grew up in Canberra and has spent most of her life in the nation's capital, but she recently moved to Sydney.
The artist currently has an exhibition called Life Abounding in the Nishi Building.
The exhibition comprises of self portraits done in watercolour. Sen normally doesn't work at such a large scale so it was an "experiment" for her.
"At the larger scale last year I did a lot of portraits but I thought this was a good experience for me in another way because I delved into my inner artist," she says.
"I like the watercolour medium because you can do detail, you can do spontaneity, you can do light and dark."
Sen's inspiration comes from many sources and when she looks to do her larger work she often turns to her handy sketchbook.
"I often do things around me, I've done things where I've gone out or sometimes I look in my sketchbook," she says.
"[I] sometimes interpret them and expand some sort of looseness and spontaneity with the sketch picture or change it from a linear drawing to a painting.
"When I have some sort of task and idea I don't try to usually take too long because it's good not to overstress over things."
The younger years are also a great source of inspiration for Sen who draws on her childhood when creating.
"The creative part in a life is growing up as a child," she says. "As a kid I was very playful, I liked dancing.
"Looking back at my childhood it's more lively and inclusive and that makes me enjoy my art.
"When you remember your childhood and the things you have learnt, it helps me to understand people's sensitivity."
Sen studied art at the Australian National University in the early to mid-1990s and remains close with her teacher, John Pratt, today.
"Vijaya is often out in the public space and is drawing cafe clientele or a landscape but there is also this capacity to take that and reinterpret it in a more lyrical, interpretative way," Pratt says.
"A lot of the exhibitions Vijaya has done have been out in the public arena, they have been in public libraries, in public buildings and things like that."
- Life Abounding by Vijaya Sen will be show at the Department of Communications and Arts in the Nishi Building at 2 Phillip Law Street until March 20, 2020. Ask for a pass at reception.