T. Venkanna 'Looking for Peace'

Curated by Abhay Maskara

Biography – The work of T. Venkanna (born in 1980 in Gajwel, India) convenes the history of art. Le Douanier Rousseau (whom he pays homage to in his early paintings) for his celebration of naïve art and his abundance of flora and fauna; Botticelli (to whom he also pays homage, while reworking one of his well-known paintings, which he renamed ‘Birth of Black Venus’) for his eternal quest for grace and beauty; and even, by effect of contrast or social and philosophical realism, Hieronymus Bosch and Egon Schiele with, in the paintings of T. Venkanna, a quasi-omnipresence of the ‘underworld’, the outrages, the unspeakable.

Biographie – La peinture de T. Venkanna (né en 1980 à Gajwel, Inde) convoque l’histoire de l’art. Le Douanier Rousseau (auquel il rend hommage à travers ses premières peintures) pour sa célébration de l’art naïf et l’omniprésence d’une luxuriante nature végétale et animale, Botticelli (auquel il rend également hommage tout en détournant l’une de ses célèbres peintures qu’il renomme ‘Birth of Black Venus’) pour son infinie quête de la grâce et de la beauté, ou encore, et par effet de contraste ou de réalisme social et philosophique, Jérôme Bosch et Egon Schiele avec, dans les peintures de T. Venkanna, une quasi omniprésence des ‘enfers’, des outrages, de l’innommable.

Other than these references to western art history, T. Venkanna’s work also reflects his eastern influences. Firstly, the influence of Japanese prints which marked both Indian and European artists in the early 20th century; the influence of the dark expressionism of Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), painter, poet, philosopher and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913; that of Chittaprosad Bhattacharya (1915-1978) and his woodcuts depicting the Bengal famine of 1943 (Venkanna himself has a great passion for etching which he assiduously practices); and finally, amongst others, evident throughout countless of Venkanna’s small-scale works (drawings, watercolors and collages) are the false levity and humour of Bhupen Khakhar (1934-2003), whose work was brought to Europe’s attention thanks to a retrospective at the Tate Modern in 2016.

T. Venkanna was the youngest artist from the Indian subcontinent to have his work featured at the exhibition of Indian contemporary art «The Empire Strikes Back» (Saatchi Gallery, London 2010). In 2015, his solo show presented by Gallery Maskara at Art Brussels was awarded the Discovery Prize. In 2022, some of T. Venkanna’s works joined the collection of the Kiran Nadar Museum, the largest private collection in India. HP