Manjushree is an Indian digital artist who paints the female form, using veils, flowing water and cloth to move between what is shown and what is hidden. Trained as an architect at the Om Dayal Group of Institutions, they left the field within months of graduating. They began making NFT art in 2021 after watching a video about Beeple selling his digital work online.
Manjushree's paintings are drawn from a private archive of about sixty-five self-portrait photographs they took over seven years, originally intended for no one else to see. After joining the NFT community they began turning these photographs into paintings influenced by the sculpture The Veiled Rebecca by Giovanni Maria Benzoni, which they first saw at age eight. Water's fluidity, Chinese violin music and film also shape the paintings, in which the muse is typically veiled by illusional cloth and flowing water. Each painting is paired with a short poem or passage drawn from Manjushree's own life. Manjushree has said their interest in NFTs grew out of an unrealized architectural vision for fluid, organic spaces that their professors dismissed as impractical in favor of rigid, geometric design. In India their work has drawn both accolades and controversy, for its subject matter and for the legitimacy of NFTs as an art form.
