Manisha Gera Baswani (b. 1967) has an MFA from the Jamia Millia Islamia University (1992). She studied in Paris on a scholarship from the French Government in 1993. She is a recipient of the National Scholarship for young emerging artists (1991-93), and the Junior Fellowship (1995-97) from the Government of India.
She has been part of group shows including ‘Sightings-Out of the Wild’, Curated by Roobina Karode for Kiran Nader Museum, ‘Hashiya’ at Anant, New Delhi ‘Luminosity Between Eternities’, Baroda 2018. Revisiting Beauty curated by Tunty Chauhan At Threshold in 2016. In 2019 she showed at the Karachi Biennale. She has also been working on a photography project ‘Artist through the lens ‘for the last 22 years, and is currently as part of a group exhibition at ‘ A Century of the Artist’s Studio1920-2020’at Whitechapel Gallery. This rather exhaustive on-going archive has been shown by the Devi Foundation in 2012 as their solo project and at the Kochi Biennale by the Kiran Nadar Museum and supported by Saffron Art Foundation in 2014. An extension of the ‘Artist through the lens’ is another project ‘Postcards from Home. This project that brings together 47 artists, all photographed by Manisha in their creative spaces, from both Pakistan and India. The project is currently on show at Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. ‘Postcards from Home’ has been shown at the Lahore Biennale in March 2018 and was shown at the recent Kochi Biennale 2018 by Kiran Nadar Museum as an invited collateral and at the 2019 India Art fair as a special project.
The artist lives and works in Gurgaon, Haryana.
Manisha is a multidisciplinary artist, weaving expressions comprising painting, photography, sculpture, and poetic writing. Her practice includes diverse body of paintings, embroidered works and sculptures which speak of her preoccupation with the human body and the healing power of art. Manisha’s art practice has extended in recent years to include sculptural forms made using feathers, eggshells and other detritus of nature foraged from around her surroundings. The idea of ‘healing’, and pain as inextricably linked to the process of healing, is central to all her recent artworks.
"We, mortals, find ourselves in the course of our lives, surrounded by fellow humans, objects, experiences, and situations. That which touches us deeply and directs us inward, evoking self-reflection, accelerates our evolution. In the Punjabi culture where I come from, Sangat is the embodiment of that idea. The three seeds embracing each other is my Sangat. The seeds have many broken parts. Some are crocheted back with love completing the seed and some I chose to leave broken.
In our life's journey, sometimes that which has left us cannot be replaced either because it is lost forever or sometimes, we are better left broken as a toxic relationship has exited us leaving a gap. We are more complete with this gap", — Manisha Gera Baswami.