Kiran Chugani was born in Casablanca , Morocco . She has lived there, in the US , the UK , Switzerland , and India , and has an academic background in studio art, jewelry design, social work and the culinary sciences. Kiran has studied painting in Washington DC with renowned local artists like John Figura, Tom Nakashima, and Mary Frank. Having experimented with ceramics, photography, sculpture and stained glass, she finds her greatest inspiration in her oil paints. Her work has been shown in Lausanne (Switzerland), Florence (Italy), Washington DC, New York (USA), Casablanca and Tangier (Morocco), Mumbai and Pune (India), featured in the "Mid-Atlantic Marvels" exhibit in Fairfax, Virginia, and auctioned in New York for Manavi, an NGO for South Asian battered women.