Art by definition is an expression. Artist Aysha Waheed captures the expression of evolving emotions through her portrait paintings.

"People are my passion," said Waheed who paints mostly people through the medium of oil on canvas. "I feel they have so much more to offer by one look or one movement of the hand."

But Waheed isn't simply painting a subject - she says her art goes deeper than that because people feel different things when they look at a painting. "It's not just a person, but a whole lot of emotions in my work," said the Kennesaw resident and Pakistan native.

"I mostly am painting the essence, the emotions. I guess they come from me," said Waheed, whose grandmother Noor us Sabah Begum's portrait was placed on a Pakistani commemorative stamp for her work with women in political activism.

Waheed, a breast cancer survivor, attributes an evolution in her own style over the years because of important occurrences, such as cancer, in her life. Instead of painting the backs of figures as seen in her early works, Waheed now depicts her subjects head-on.

"It's not really the person I'm painting. I'm facing whatever is there and is in front of me and I paint it," said the former graphic designer who is married to Cal Waheed.

Waheed, the mother of two grown children, views the change in perspective as personal growth in her discipline. With her own development, Waheed has added a touch of abstract to her usual realism mode of painting with lots of movement and texture achieved through type of paints and instruments.

Waheed, who exhibited two of her portraits this year at Atlanta's High Museum of Art during a show highlighting Muslim artists, is self-taught. Although she has enjoyed painting all her life, Waheed now finds painting much more a passion rather than a hobby.

"If I don't paint, I get really sad," she said.