T. Venkanna
PROJECT
T. Venkanna strives to capture the human condition by representing pure feeling and the limits of emotion. His work explores the sexual imagination, questioning and confronting the ways in which sexuality is understood and defined. This diptych was inspired by a public garden behind the artist’s home in Hyderabad in India’s south, which admitted men and women through separate, timed entries. By depicting sexualised figures and same-sex relationships, Venkanna subverts this enforced separation, offering a pointed commentary on restriction and moral policing.
To produce this diptych, T. Venkanna worked in collaboration with master zardozi karigars, skilled embroidery artisans at the Kalhath Institute in Lucknow. Zardozi, a type of heavy, elaborate metal embroidery originating in Persia and found throughout the Indian subcontinent, is named from the Persian words zar (gold) and dozi (sewing). In zardozi, needles and curved hooks are used to weave metallic threads into a base fabric, along with three-dimensional materials such as beads, sequins and pearls. Exploring the boundary between craft and art, Venkanna refers to these collaborative works as ‘embroidery paintings’, created using a needle in place of a paintbrush.
The acquisition of this artist’s work is supported by Dr Peter Chu
ABOUT
Based in Hyderabad, India, T. Venkanna explores themes of everyday life, cultural symbolism and social commentary. Across more than two decades, his work has bridged Indian artistic traditions and global contemporary discourses on sexuality, identity and power. Venkanna’s diverse mediums include painting, print-making, ink and watercolour drawings, sculpture, embroidery and performance. He studied in India at MS University in Baroda and JNTU in Hyderabad, and his work has been exhibited at Studio Voltaire (UK), the Clarinda Carnegie Art Museum (US), Sharjah Art Museum (UAE), the Yale School of Art (US), and at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (India).