Jemisha Maadhavji: I Dream From Where You Are

Jemisha Maadhavji (b.1996) is an acclaimed artist known for her vibrant, pattern-rich portraiture. Her work was selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2022, and in 2023, she created a portrait of NHS junior doctor, Grace Spence Green, for the BBC series Extraordinary Portraits. Working primarily in oil, her practice explores identity, fashion, and representation. Inspired by luxury interiors and design, including Liberty and de Gournay designs, Maadhavji places her sitters within imagined spaces composed of floral wallpapers, contrasting textiles, and blocks of bold colour. Her subjects, often encountered through street conversations or social media, use fashion as a form of self-expression, reflecting Maadhavji’s interest in the way clothing conveys identity and presence. Based in Leicester and of Indian heritage, Maadhavji draws on the vibrancy of her diverse neighbourhood. Sari shops, hand-embroidered and block-printed textiles, and Indian confectioners act as a reference point for the vivid colour and intricate patterns in her work. Floral motifs recur throughout her work, expressing her idea of luxury as a ‘flawless connection with nature’. Bouquets are painted in oil, and blooms appear in delicate washes of colour. Maadhavji often incorporates flowers as a decorative element in her paintings of male subjects, challenging the conventional associations of floral imagery and femininity within portraiture. Influenced by Susan Sontag’s Notes on ‘Camp’, Maadhavji’s work challenges conventional ideas of beauty, reimagining portraiture as a site where fashion, identity, and individuality intersect and the lines between masculine and feminine are redrawn.