Maneesha Bahuguna is an autistic visual artist living with invisible disability and chronic illness. Although she received a formal fine-art education, she identifies as an autodidact (especially in the photographic and plastic arts).

Her practice is informed by cognitive science and cognitive psychology. She is particularly interested in how Bayesian brain theory and neuroaesthetics can be used to expand our understanding of perception and creativity in the autistic brain.

Maneesha has a complex neurocognitive profile that forms her heightened perception and visuospatial sensitivity. Her vision is both impaired and enhanced due to the optical effects of myopia and atypical visuosensory processing. These conditions directly influence how she sees and relates to stimuli (light, shadow, line, form, negative space and tonal value) within her immediate environment. 

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She uses photography, drawing, and painting to produce visual-field abstractions and natura morta. She also create Brainscapes through surrealist automatism and a non-linear and atelic approach to mark making triggered by her weak priors and default mode network (DMN).

Her work converges on the philosophical and plastic concerns of mid-twentieth-century painting from the New York and San Francisco schools of abstract expressionism and Bay Area figurative art. She finds continual inspiration in the oeuvres of Robert Motherwell, Franz Kline, Richard Diebenkorn, Fernando de Szyszlo, Giorgio Morandi and Lee Krasner.

From 2018 to 2026, Maneesha and her husband, autistic artist and film photographer Daniel Hancox, lived in the Australian bush, including four years off-grid in riparian rainforest. They're now based in their hometown of Meanjin/Brisbane with their dog, Nina.