Born in Srinagar in 1927, Santosh Manchanda went to college in Lahore with Fine Arts as one of her subjects.

Without much formal training she has been painting since the early forties and has experimented with numerous mediums and forms of art.

Santosh is extremely versatile and her works show a wide range of style and technique. She paints only from her imagination and her creations are the products of her sensitive mind.

Santosh has held over 24 individual shows in India and abroad and her works have been exhibited in several group shows including the National Art exhibitions.

A number of her works have been acquired by museums, art galleries and art collectors in India and abroad.

There was a time when Santosh sang more than she painted. Even now she cannot separate the two.

As the Indian classical raga Bhairavi with its purity of notes remains her favourite, so she delights in mixing different tones of one color in many of her paintings.

"I paint or draw to express what yearns within me to find expression. Images build up in the mind. The images have their own language, their color, form and texture. Some images fade away. Some imprint themselves indelibly on the memory. An image emerges. It may change shape. Depending on the mood, the feeling, the experience, it struggles for expression in its own peculiar form.

The brush, the pen, the fingers move for translating the experience and the emotion. Sometimes the form of expression surprises me too! One wonders at the mode and mood of expression. Sometimes I start blank, forgetting and erasing the imprinted images; forgetting my experiences in art forms and all I have learnt. Then, a picture moves up on the canvas. It struggles to find a form. It fights for being born. In being born, it may change shape and form. But it yearns to be, and it emerges alive.

The concentration, the physical and mental intensity eventually yields to expression. It is like classical music. It requires intense devotion. It brings me great delight. I want then to share the delight with the world. At times, it is difficult to make others see and enjoy what I see and feel. But, as for me, I have created; I have expressed".