Surface Tension

Assembly is pleased to present a selection of work from Manjari Sharma’s latest series, Surface Tension. This new body of work extends her metaphorical gaze to one of the most fundamental elements of human life and transforms her viewers alongside her subjects.

Water is life. It cleanses, it feeds, it transforms, and it destroys. Surface Tension explores our metaphysical relationship with water through diverse human forms submerged in swimming pools. These immersive and gestural forms highlight the fragility, circularity, and oneness of our existence, turning the pool into a vessel for transcendence.

Born and raised in Mumbai, India, Sharma roots her decades-long practice in her cultural heritage, but extends her personal narrative to a more universal one. Her work is shaped by her curiosity about the inner landscape of the human mind and its inextricable, elemental, and sacred relationship to ritual and mythology.