From Executive to Artist: How I Rebuilt My Creative Life After 30 Years in Business

Abstract Paintings from Modern Abstract Artist Ritu Raj

For most of my life, I solved problems. As an entrepreneur, designer, and systems thinker, I moved through the world building ventures, navigating strategy, and creating structure where there was none. That kind of work demands clarity, momentum, and control. But somewhere along the way, I realized I’d lost touch with something else—something slower, quieter, and more personal.

What I needed wasn’t another startup. What I needed was space.

And so, after more than three decades in business, I began to paint. Not with a plan, but with an instinct. What started as a small act of curiosity—an hour here, a sketch there—quickly opened into something much deeper. I didn’t return to painting as a hobby. I returned as a way of asking questions I couldn’t ask in a boardroom.

Not Retirement — Transformation

This shift wasn’t about stepping away from productivity. It was about transforming how I related to time, attention, and expression. I wasn’t retiring from creativity—I was returning to its source.

Abstraction became my language. I began experimenting with twine instead of brushes—pulling paint across canvas in unpredictable gestures. The process was tactile, improvisational, and deeply embodied. I couldn’t plan the outcome. I had to be present with what was unfolding.

And that was the revelation: I no longer needed to control the result. I just needed to listen.

From Solving to Sensing

Becoming a professional artist after decades as an executive meant reorienting my inner compass. Instead of solving for efficiency or scale, I began to explore sensation, movement, and emotion. The metrics disappeared; presence replaced them.

The skills I’d built—discipline, focus, design thinking—didn’t vanish. But they took on new form. They now lived in the way I chose my palette, prepared a surface, or paused between layers. I learned to follow tension instead of avoiding it. I let texture lead.

This wasn’t a pivot. It was a remembering.

For Those Standing at the Edge

If you’re reading this and standing at the edge of your own shift—from structure to intuition, from building to being—I want to say this clearly:

It’s not too late.

The creativity you’ve spent years deferring hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s still in you. Waiting, perhaps, for a moment of silence. Or a streak of red across a blank surface. Or the permission to begin without knowing where it’s going.

“I create to shift how we see and feel through abstraction—opening space for reflection, connection, and quiet transformation. Change begins not with certainty, but with listening.”

That’s what painting has become for me: not an escape from reality, but a deeper way into it.

If this speaks to you—reach out. I’d love to hear your story. Or simply, take a moment to look through the work. Let something unexpected find you.