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T Venkanna’s pictures fall like a punch. At the center of his first public show is an extravagant sacrificial composition, modified by squat side panels to take on the overall appearance of a young swamp figure. Below, on either side, are Adam and Eve. Their backs are turned as they gaze into the orgasmic throes of desire. A woman enjoys someone’s nose, another likes an animal’s back and others enjoy a variety of colors and styles that make Hieronymus Bosch look calm.
But material happiness is only a root word. “It’s a way of thinking about many things, including religious myths,” says Venkanna. In these long places there are stone images of the male and female deities of India. Women worship a topiary lingam – the aniconic image of Shiva – and a man caresses the breast of a female idol (drinking from its own). Photos? “This is what you see in ancient temples,” says Venkanna. “People touch the breasts of the statues to make them smooth and shiny over time.”
The contrast between puritanical religious doctrine and realism first became apparent to Venkanna as a child. He was born in 1980, and grew up in the small town of Gajwel, located in south central India, about the size of Ipswich. The one-room house where he lived with five other members of his family outgrew the house of his father, who was a Hindu priest. Venkanna said: “Villagers would come to ask about the rituals they had to do, when is the best day to do things. These rules and expectations of proper behavior, such as chastity, had a good degree of flexibility, Venkanna found. “Would you think I was finding hidden European adultery books?”
These can be considered to be some of his original features. He drew and painted nude pictures at home, and while his family was against the content, they could not ignore his art. Sent to train as an art teacher and to work in a government school, it was while preparing for his exams in Hyderabad that he came across the idea of a fine arts college. He signed up. With the help of teachers who provided their tools, they hired him as an 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 – an egg-based paint that was loved by the greats of the Renaissance and continues to use it today.
Although Venkanna walked away with a gold medal, he stood his ground as he began his master’s studies at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, one of India’s leading engineering schools. He said: “It was a difficult time. “I didn’t know how to draw. I just knew how to do this.” The course was steeped in history and folklore. Venkanna soon came to see her experiences through the lens of Frida Kahlo and Henri Rousseau, and for a time painted. alcoholic beverages of the Western Art canon.
Charles Saatchi filmed one of Venkanna’s first films, but audiences in India were not impressed. At his graduation show in 2006 – when the country’s art market was so electrified that, according to Venkanna, “whatever artists did, people bought” – everything he sold was limited. Now, in his mid-40s, he proudly says that “people who didn’t want” his early results “want them now”.
Not all the attention has been persuasive, however. In India, Venkanna is accused of blasphemy and is threatened with death. When his print, depicting a woman lifting herself to the erect penises of two men, was displayed at one of Delhi’s most popular cultural venues, it had to be hidden behind a black curtain. He said: “It’s absurd. Read the newspaper, and you’ll see a lot of violence.
Venkanna is also trying to provide an argument against the gender inequality and discrimination that she continues to witness. What women experience is triggered, especially how they satisfy their sexual desire. Sometimes Venkanna shows this as revenge; in Golden Quartet (2025), for example, among grass-colored urinals and golden leaves, two women ride a skeleton-like man at a speed that seems to bring the men closer to their deaths.
It is before these tragic events that it ponders the subtle differences between intimacy and alienation, acceptance and violation, respect and ugliness. “I don’t want to be surprised,” says Venkanna. “What I’m showing are the things that surround us.”
