The Hindu : New Delhi News : Merging myth and much else in colours

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Thursday, Aug 23, 2007
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New Delhi

Merging myth and much else in colours

Madhur Tankha

Illuminations -111: Water-colour on acid-free paper by Maneesha Doshi

NEW DELHI: Art to her is a means of communication with the public. An exhibition of Baroda-based artist Maneesha Doshi’s works in watercolours and oils opens at Shridharni Gallery here this Thursday.

The nine-day exhibition comprises about 25 works in large and small formats. Over the years, the artist has made several conscious changes in her works. Working in oils and acrylic till just three years ago, she has now started using watercolours.

Maneesha studied painting at Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda, under the tutelage of well-known artists such as Jeram Patel, Bhupen Kakkar, and Ghulam and Nilima Sheikh.

While one cannot categorise Maneesha’s works as ‘naïve art’, there is a definite and deliberate naivety and innocence in her style of working that she has evolved into a medium of expression of her innermost thoughts, thus giving rise to imaginary spaces that are much more private. In the representation of figures in her work she tries to infuse the same quality.

As artist Rekha Rodwittya succinctly puts in: “Maneesha delights in the playfulness that animals and nature offer her, and she couples this with the human figure to make for internal landscapes that reflect the fables of her life as she lives each day.”

According to curators Hema Singh and Priya Pall, Maneesha is an artist who has fused mythological and feminine themes so flawlessly that it seems effortless for art lovers to experience the same passion, inspiration and spirituality felt by the artist herself during the creation of each piece.

From 1984 to 1986 Maneesha worked with the Kanoria Centre for Arts and in 1989 attended a workshop in France.

Between 1990 and 1994 she studied painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts in M.S. University, Baroda, and obtained her diploma and post-graduate diploma.

Maneesha has been exhibiting works regularly since 1995.

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