T Venkanna\u2019s paintings land like a sucker-punch. At the centre of his first institutional solo show is an overbearing altarpiece, modified by two squat side panels to take the overall shape of a juvenile dick drawing. Perched at the bottom, on either side, are Adam and Eve. Their backs are turned as they look out on an orgasmic thicket of desire. A female figure is pleasured by another\u2019s nose, someone copulates with the hindquarters of an animal and others fondle in a kaleidoscopic blur of colours and styles that make Hieronymus Bosch look restrained.<\/p>\n
But carnal enjoyment is merely the footnote. \u201cIt is a way to consider many things, including the myth of religions,\u201d says Venkanna. Scattered within this longing landscape are stony figures redolent of India\u2019s pantheon of gods and goddesses. Women worship a topiary lingam \u2013 the aniconic depiction of Shiva \u2013 and a man caresses a statuesque woman\u2019s breast (while drinking from her vagina). Graphic? \u201cThat is what you see in ancient temples,\u201d says Venkanna. \u201cPeople touch the breasts of sculptures so that over time they become very smooth and shiny.\u201d<\/p>\n
Makes Hieronymus Bosch look restrained \u2026 Sculpture Garden by T Venkanna. Photograph: Dominique Croshaw\/Courtesy of the artist, Gallery Maskara, and Studio Voltaire<\/p>\n
The disparity between puritanical religious doctrine and licentious reality started to become evident to Venkanna in his childhood. Born in 1980, he grew up in Gajwel, a small town in south-central India roughly the size of Ipswich. The one-room home he shared with five other members of his family doubled as the rectory of his father, a Hindu priest. \u201cVillage people would come to ask about what rituals they had to do, when was a good day to do things,\u201d says Venkanna. These rules and expectations of appropriate behaviour, such as the ideal of chastity, had a convenient degree of flexibility, Venkanna discovered. \u201cCan you imagine that I used to find European porn books hidden around?\u201d<\/p>\n
Those could be considered some of his early source material. He painted and drew naked figures at home, and while his family was ambivalent about the content, they could not overlook his skill. Sent to train as a drawing teacher and destined for a job in a government school, it was only while preparing for his exams in Hyderabad that he encountered the concept of a fine art college. He enrolled. With the support of teachers who donated their spare materials, employed him as their assistant and went so far as to give him a place to stay, he learned printmaking, miniature painting and how to make and work with tempera \u2013 an egg-based paint favoured by the Renaissance greats which he continues to use today.<\/p>\n
Although Venkanna left with a gold medal, he stalled as he embarked on his master\u2019s at Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, one of India\u2019s most prestigious art schools. \u201cIt was a difficult time,\u201d he says. \u201cI did not know what to paint. I only knew how to do it.\u201d The course included art history and theory. Venkanna soon came to see his experiences through the lens of Frida Kahlo and Henri Rousseau, and for a time painted intoxicating pastiches<\/a> of the western art canon.<\/p>\n Charles Saatchi snapped up one of Venkanna\u2019s early works, but audiences in India were not enamoured. At his graduate show in 2006 \u2013 when the country\u2019s art market was so electric that, according to Venkanna, \u201cwhatever artists did, people bought\u201d \u2013 all he sold was a paltry etching. Now, in his mid 40s, he says with more than a hint of pride that \u201cthe people who didn\u2019t want\u201d his early output \u201cnow do\u201d.<\/p>\n Pre-cataclysmic scenes \u2026 Evolution, 2014, by T Venkanna. Photograph: Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Maskara Mumbai<\/p>\n Not all of the attention has been adulatory, however. In India, Venkanna has been accused of blasphemy and has received death threats. When a print of his, showing a woman hoisting herself up on to the erect penises of two men, was exhibited at one of Delhi\u2019s most notable cultural institutions, it had to be hidden behind a black curtain. \u201cIt\u2019s absurd,\u201d he says. \u201cRead the newspaper, and you\u2019ll see much more violence. This is what I\u2019m trying to show.\u201d<\/p>\n Venkanna is also trying to offer a counterpoint to the gender inequality and prejudice he continues to witness. Women\u2019s experiences are foregrounded, particularly the ways in which they satiate their sexual appetite. Sometimes Venkanna depicts this as a vengeful act; in Golden Quartet (2025), for instance, amid sprays of straw-coloured and gold leaf urine, two women each ride a skeletal-looking man at a pace that seems to be drawing the men closer to their death.<\/p>\n It is these pre-cataclysmic scenes that so brilliantly consider the murky distinctions between intimacy and isolation, consent and violation, decency and obscenity. \u201cI don\u2019t want to shock,\u201d Venkanna says. \u201cWhat I\u2019m showing are things around us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"T Venkanna\u2019s paintings land like a sucker-punch. At the centre of his first institutional solo show is an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695331,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,75],"class_list":["post-695330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}