FLOW

Between overlapping geographies and lives in motion, the work of Tanisha Raj unfolds as a map of the in-between—those spaces where cultures converge and transform, cities blur, and belonging becomes a process rather than a fixed point. In FLOW, this condition of continual movement becomes both subject and structure: a quiet current running through her practice, shaped by migration, memory, and the slow evolution of identity. Born in Hong Kong to Indian parents and shaped by years in London, Hong Kong, the United States, Berlin, and now Lisbon, Raj embodies an existence formed through passages, thresholds, and states of transition.

Her practice, rooted in woodcut printmaking yet expanding into a conceptual territory of its own, is grounded in repetition as a mode of thinking. Raj carves painted wooden panels without preliminary sketches: each incision is a meditative gesture, a rhythm that accumulates like steady breathing. In a deliberate inversion of traditional printmaking, the artist does not produce prints—the matrix itself becomes the final artwork. Meaning emerges in the carving rather than in reproduction, turning the surface into a physical record of time, attention, and presence.

Raj conceives her compositions as contemporary mandalas: visual structures that serve simultaneously as map, meditation, and system. The circle acts as a symbolic compass capable of holding cultural and emotional complexity. Her densely patterned, hypnotic surfaces evoke landscapes shaped by layers of migration, history, and cultural collision. This hybrid visual language mirrors a life lived across multiple value systems and modes of belonging.

Repetition stands at the heart of her process, echoing the daily devotional practice of her grandmother, who wrote the same mantra each day across hundreds of notebooks—an act of quiet persistence that revealed meaning through focus. That ritual becomes a blueprint for Raj: a reminder that meaning is not a destination but a slow unfolding.

Each work becomes an invitation to contemplation—a space where order and fluidity coexist, where the microscopic and the cosmic meet, where the experience of displacement takes geometric form. In FLOW, Raj’s pieces do not depict the world; they hold its shifting rhythms. In the patient vibration of her marks, in the calm insistence of her gesture, a place opens for reorientation, for stillness, and for inhabiting—even briefly—the expansive territory of the in-between.

Statement

Through a practice of repeated mark-making, I construct visual mandalas that map the terrain of the in-between—where cultures overlap, cities blur, and belonging is continually renegotiated between departure and arrival. Mandalas offer a framework through which these complexities can be held—part map, part meditation, part system for navigating the uncertainty of belonging. 

My work is grounded in a life lived across geographies and value systems. Moving between continents has shaped a fluid sense of identity—one that is formed in passages, thresholds, and the spaces that resist fixed definition. My grandmother had a devotional practice of writing the same mantra daily, filling hundreds of notebooks through quiet, intentional repetition. Her ritual became a blueprint for how I understand meaning: not as a destination, but as something revealed through steady focus. 

Repetition sits at the center of my practice. Each mark functions like a step, a breath, or a mantra—accumulating into geometric structures that hold both order and fluidity. Although my process is rooted in woodcut printmaking, I never create prints—the carved panel itself is the final work. Meaning emerges in the carving, not in its reproduction, making the matrix both the method and the artwork. The visual language of my pieces draws from hybridity: the layered textures of cities shaped by migration, history, and cultural collision. 

Bio

Born in Hong Kong to Indian parents and now based in Lisbon, Tanisha Raj uses repeated mark-making to create visual mandalas that explore cultural hybridity and belonging. She holds a Bachelor’s in Business Administration from Atlanta, USA, and previously worked in global management consulting, specialising in organisational culture, strategy, and human-centred design. Her work has been featured in ChromArt Digital Magazine, Thrown Contemporary’s Winter Exhibition 23/24, and Art Basel Summer Camp 2025, and she is currently an artist-in-residence at Lagos Berlin.