Madhavi Parekh, who works and lives in New Delhi, was born in 1942 in Sanjay, a village in Gujarat. A self-taught artist, Madhavi started painting in 1964, inspired by the rich folk traditions of picture making in Gujarat. Over the years she grew out of the constraints of the folk conventions, yet sticking to the traditional flat surface and the pictorial significance of the decorative elements. Her use of oil and acrylic on canvas and watercolour on paper, a decisive shift from the traditional materials and surface of the folk painters, stimulated and broadened her artistic imagination, and the initial naive charm of her paintings matured and became loaded with her statements on women, girl child, and encounters between the rural and urban India.

Since 1964, Madhavi has participated in many solo and important group shows, notably "Watercolour by Four Women Artists', Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal (1987), Jehangir Art Gallery, Bombay (1987), 'Contemporary Art: Sahmat', presented at the Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi (1990). The Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, sponsored a documentary film on Madhavi and her artist husband Manu Parekh in 1992.

Between 1972 and 1993, Madhavi Parekh had eight solo shows, including AI-Khaleej a in Kuwait (1985), and 13 group shows in India and abroad ('Play' in Turkey and Yugoslavia, 1985) and participated in 12 artists' camps and workshops, and auctions held by Sotheby's (1989, Bombay), 'Sahmat' (1989, New Delhi), Asprey (1 990, Help age India, Bombay).