Manjot Kaur

Manjot Kaur's drawings, paintings & time-based media summon the mystical, scientific & absurd to draw attention to current socio-political predicaments and the sovereignty of ecology. 

Her works traverse speculative fiction, visual storytelling & myth-making, to explore the interconnection between humans & more than humans.
​Borrowed imagery & text bridge the past and present, while imaginative, fantasy-inducing zones of abstraction invite viewers to contemplate the legacies of the landscapes we occupy & exploit.
With an attempt to decolonise both women's bodies and nature, she refers to archaic cultural symbols of fertility in order to reflect on present day reproductive rights of various species of flora and fauna.
Cross Pollinating ancient mythologies and histories, she counter-narrates iconic motifs & attributes, and set them in juxtaposition with one another, to allow opportunities for critical reflection. 
There emerges a conceptual framework of natureculture, which proposes different ways of thinking about agency and power, difference and sociality, and, ontology and epistemology. How does the worlds that we create in fantasy impact our present day thinking practices? What are the consequences of fertility and the urge to procreate for human species? How do we mourn for what we have lost and what efforts are required to regain the biodiversity that is currently on the verge of extinction? How to create a sustainable and respectable correlation between biodiversity and human progress to future proof our planet for generations come? Rivers, forests, and intangible heritages have legal rights in certain nations; how might this notion be pushed further?
As humans and nature continue to adapt to ever-changing, increasingly hostile environments, her works offer both dire warnings and insulated, if uncertain, spheres of refuge.

Manjot Kaur completed her B.F.A and M.F.A in Painting from Government College of Art, Panjab University, Chandigarh. She has been an artist in residence at Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, Netherlands (2020-21), 1 Shanthiroad, Bangalore, (2019), Unidee, Cittadellarte Fondazione Pistoletto, Italy (2018) supported by Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation, India and Peers - Khoj International Artists' Association, New Delhi, (2018). Her recent participation includes “Non- Fungible Speculations”, Nature Morte, New Delhi; "The World Awaits You Like a Garden", Latitude 28, New Delhi (2022); "The Pool of Memories", Surrey Art Gallery, Greater Vancouver, Canada(2022); "Hurting and Healing - Let's Imagine a Different Heritage", Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm, Sweden (2022), ‘Terrain Offline’, Bikaner House, New Delhi, India (2022) and "Garden State", Garage Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands (2021) among others. She recently received Generator Art Production Fund from Experimenter Gallery, Kolkata, India, 2022.

Manjot Kaur lives and works in Vancouver.