(Pamela Sukhum) I was a research scientist, specializing in electrophysiology.

And I loved it, but I also wanted a creative outlet.

And so one summer I asked myself, what would I try if I wasn't afraid of anything?

And for some reason, painting just came to mind, and the second that my brush touched the canvas, something just opened, and I fell in love-- immediately.

I believe that my work is influenced by my scientific background because I think at the end of the day, that in the pure sciences, as well as in the pure arts, it's always a search for truth.

So the first thing is, I'm just going to be brushing yellow on the canvas, so it's pretty straightforward.

[thumb piano plays] I have two major collections of work.

The first one is called natural surrealism, and that really is born out of my love of nature, and more importantly, what I think nature reminds us of or points to.

And I take a 4-inch brush, almost like a house brush, start out with big strokes of paint, and I create that underlayer.

Over that I'm adding a medium to kind of create almost like a slippery layer.

And then over that with the 4-inch brush again these big sweeping motions of red and then layering in deep crimsons and deep purples over that.

So I keep layering up the paint.

With the natural surrealism collection, it's very much where I'm looking at flowers and then I'm going back to the studio and creating the essence of those flowers, not exactly how I saw them, but the feeling of them.

It's very thick in pastel layers, so I'm really laying in a lot of paint, a lot of texture, a lot of metallics, and it's really about the lushness of the natural world coming through.

So the next thing that I'll do for this painting is, I'll start to throw paint.

It's great because it's really organic and you just have to kind of let go and let the paint land where it wants to.

And I'm often just as surprised as anyone else.

♪ ♪ After that, I will carve out the flowers, which is great, 'cause that's like the reveal.

Basically by pulling away all the paint on top, the yellow that was painted initially at the bottom is revealed, and so it's like it's watching a flower kind of bloom and come to life.

The final part is carving in the stems and doing some of the detail work, but all of that is a very rapid process.

And the reason why I do it that way is because if I continue to move, it becomes more like dance, where I don't have the chance to think about things or judge.

My goal, when I'm starting a painting like that is just to get myself out of the way and let whatever needs to come through come through.

And so I really see that part of the painting as just one big leap of faith.

[acoustic guitar plays a bright melody] The new series is called "New Hemispheres."

We usually think of, there's a left hemisphere of the brain, there's a right hemisphere of the brain.

There is an eastern hemisphere of the world, and there's a western hemisphere.

But what if there's actually more than that, more than what each of us has thought has been possible in our lives?

In a time where so many people have to redefine their lives, I think that these pieces are a reminder that there's a lot more possible than we thought.

The "New Hemispheres" pieces, that's actually layers and layers of spray paint and then moving in with very fine brushes.

It's just a very different process.

The spray paint is very immediate and you get to use a lot of colors at once.

For a lot of the painting, the spray paint is used as kind of this soft, feathery effect, almost like water colors would blend into one another.

But then it's also fun because you can use it to splatter as well to kind of create this mottled look, and it creates a lot of dimension and depth and it's just a fun medium to work with.

♪ ♪ There's a John Muir quote that says, "Everybody needs both beauty and bread."

♪ ♪ With "The Beautiful Project," I really wanted to share the transformative effect of art, and so we went to refugee camps in Chad and Darfur, and we worked with the children in the refugee camps there, both bringing them the beauty and the bread, so there was medical and food, as well as art projects so that the children could express themselves, tell their stories, and begin to have tools to transform their lives, through the vehicle of art.

We just gave them a simple No.

2 lead pencil and a piece of paper, and we said, "Draw whatever you want."

And as soon as we said, "Go!

", for 3 hours, their heads were down and we realized in that moment, that these kids were hungering for something to engage in, and yes, something where they could create something that was just for them.

♪ ♪ It was beautiful to see also the kids feel a sense of self-empowerment, that they could start to change the picture, and then perhaps maybe change the picture in their own lives.

So the artwork was a great way for them to be able to express themselves very freely.

My work is always shifting.

It seems like I get to a point where I'm comfortable with something, and it's almost like that's usually the cue-- when I know where the brush is going to go, that's when I need to try something else so that I'm always kind of keeping on my creative edge.

So in terms of where it's heading, I usually don't know.