BIOGRAPHY

Rudra Manani (she/her) is a contemporary artist residing on the unceded territories of the Lkwungen, Songhees, Esquimalt and W̱SÁNEĆ nations, also known as Victoria, B.C. By situating herself as an artist on unceded land, Manani recognizes that the navigation of her identity as an Indo-“Canadian” woman is a journey that is privileged in multiple ways. By untangling her identity from colonial influences, she hopes to better understand her relationship to the stolen land she resides on. 

As an abstract painter, Manani relies on intuitive notions both to build a composition and to subsequently find a way to reconcile the work. However, in every day life, she is often anxiously gripped with the desire for certainty. She is interested in how this process parallels to the tension between choosing the rigorous lure of capitalist principles, or embracing the risk of the tantalizing unknown. This battle comes to fruition in her work, with the latter triumphing, as Manani utilizes numerous diluted washes of paint to intuitively form a resolution along the way.

Since graduating from the University of Victoria, Manani has been interviewed as an emerging artist by CBC Radio and has completed her first international artist residency at the Skopelos Foundation for the Arts in Skopelos, Magnisia, Greece.