Hargun Mahal Mann

Hargun Mahal Mann grew up as the child of an Army personnel, an upbringing defined by constant movement between homes, schools, and cultural contexts. That early experience trained her to enter unfamiliar spaces with attentiveness and adaptability, learning how to observe people closely and create a sense of belonging wherever she landed. Moving so frequently fostered a lasting curiosity about human connection, particularly the ways people remain fundamentally similar across different languages, places, and routines. While art was not always formally present in her childhood, she describes life itself as vibrant, layered, and full of stories.

Her family played a significant role in shaping her creative sensibility. Mann points especially to her father’s playful and open spirit, which encouraged curiosity, experimentation, and questioning from an early age. That freedom to wonder and explore became foundational to her creative practice and continues to inform how she approaches art today.

Art emerged early as both refuge and language. A natural daydreamer, Mann often withdrew into drawing and coloring as a child, using visual expression to navigate emotions she did not yet have words for. A pivotal moment came when her younger brother was born, disrupting her sense of stability and prompting a deeper retreat into making. Family members recall that period as the moment her artistic identity became unmistakable, marked by long hours spent coloring and quietly processing her inner world through image.

Mann completed both her BFA and MFA in Applied Art at Government College of Art, Chandigarh, Punjab University in India. Her formal education provided a rigorous foundation and placed art at the center of daily life. Although her parents initially prioritized financial stability over creative pursuits, acceptance into art college marked a turning point. For the first time, she found herself surrounded by people for whom art was not a pastime but a way of thinking and living. That environment affirmed her direction and deeply shaped her approach to practice.

Although trained in applied art, Mann never intended to work in advertising. Instead, her path unfolded alongside major life transitions, including marriage, motherhood, and extensive travel. She lived in Kenya, Botswana, and South Africa, eventually settling in South Africa for over six years. During this period, she worked with clay and learned traditional African coil-built pottery in a private studio, developing a tactile and time-based relationship with form that continues to influence her work.

After relocating to the United States in 2018, practical constraints led to a shift in medium. Without a work permit and while raising young children, Mann transitioned from clay to acrylic and eventually to watercolor. What began as a logistical decision evolved into a deep commitment. She was drawn to watercolor’s fluidity, unpredictability, and capacity for emotional depth, which now sits at the core of her practice.

Mann is motivated by curiosity and a belief that different ideas demand different materials. Rather than adhering to a single genre or medium, she allows form to follow feeling, moving between materials in response to what each idea requires. Her work does not center on a fixed theme, but instead draws continuously from lived experience. Recurring areas of inquiry include the fragile notion of home, shaped by a childhood of repeated resettling, and the female experience within patriarchal social structures. As a woman and a mother, she is particularly attentive to how women adapt, nurture, resist, and support one another, often becoming each other’s quiet sources of strength.

Her influences span visual art and literature, including Mithu Sen, Neelima Sheikh, Arpita Singh, Louise Bourgeois, Vincent van Gogh, Cy Twombly, and Sally Mann, as well as writers such as Rebecca Solnit, Virginia Woolf, Arundhati Roy, James Baldwin, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Amitav Ghosh. Reading and poetry play a central role in how she thinks about history, intimacy, identity, and social structures.

Drawing anchors Mann’s daily practice. She maintains a consistent drawing routine shaped by current events and the world around her, using raw, intuitive sketches as a way to process emotional and social realities. Writing also plays a key role through regular journal work, allowing space for ideas to surface before they take visual form. Larger projects emerge gradually from this accumulation of reading, sketching, and reflection.

Her surroundings frequently enter the work, particularly through engagement with contemporary events. One notable series developed in response to the Roe v. Wade ruling, which she describes as deeply unsettling. As a woman and a mother to a daughter, the decision prompted reflection on fear, grief, and resistance, transforming collective events into a personal visual language.

Mann’s creative life is carefully interwoven with domestic rhythms. Early mornings begin with tea, writing, and drawing, followed by time devoted to her children before returning to her studio practice. Painting often unfolds alongside podcasts or audiobooks, with intricate detailing becoming a meditative process. Teaching elementary school children provides both balance and renewal, reminding her of the value of fearlessness and persistence through observation of how young students approach challenges.

She views creative blocks as periods to move through rather than avoid, using them as opportunities for deeper reading, drawing, and reflection. For Mann, fulfillment comes most strongly from the act of making itself, particularly when working through difficulty. A recent milestone included her first solo exhibition, where seeing years of work gathered in one space and shared with family and friends offered a rare sense of completion.

Success, in her view, is measured by honesty. She gauges it by her ability to let the work speak without doubt overtaking the process, returning again and again to drawing and to the understanding that making art is a necessity rather than a choice. Remaining grounded in that truth allows her to sustain her practice amid uncertainty, collaboration, and change.