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Art in every form illuminates the dull reality of life we experience every day. What starts as a thought can manifest into a larger than life body of work that impacts the way we contemplate and create. Meet Reethee Venkatesh, an emerging sculptor hailing from Chennai who uses her medium of art to hold tough conversations in the art world and beyond.
Upon first glance, the 20-something law student turned sculptors’ work seems jarringly provocative. Featuring a bold portrayal of the human anatomy in its most unfiltered form, Reethee’s sculptors are a reflection of her perception of the fallacies that plague our society beyond protected academic spheres,
Describing her art as raw and disturbing, the young artist is all about reclaiming her narrative and realizing her own interpretation of social issues. Appearing to capture a strong concept with every sculptor, her sharp expression and questioning gaze shines a light on the female experience in a world that often tries to clamp down on freedom of thought and shies away from anything even remotely uncomfortable.
Homegrown: Can you start off by telling us a little about yourself and your background in art?
Reethee Venkatesh: I’m a law student from Chennai who has always been fascinated with how gross yet functional and beautiful the human body is.
I’ve never had any formal training in art apart from a few painting classes as a child, but my uncle is a fashion designer and I’ve had the privilege of being involved in his creative process from a very young age.
HG: What inspired you to start creating sculptures? If you had to describe your artistic flow in 3 words, what would it be?
RV: Ever since I was a child, I have been exposed to gendered violence, both in the domestic and public spaces. After getting admitted into law school, I learnt that the personal was the political and this was pivotal in the way that I perceived my own experiences as a neurodivergent woman navigating a world ruled by hegemonic institutions. My university required me to make visual essays for the purpose of academic assessments and this was when I started articulating my thoughts through sculptures.
In my 3rd year of law school, I was forced to move back home due to the pandemic and had to face the reality check of having to live outside the sanitised academic space. I realised that the conversations in the real world were much different from law school and accepting the existing inequalities was the norm. This deeply angered me after having been exposed to an environment that was predominantly “woke”. Having to stay in a home and a city that was not in tune with my thoughts left me feeling unempowered. As a result, I directed my focus towards making more art that was controversial while acting as a social commentary.
HG: Your art has a provocative tinge, laced with bold narratives. Could you elaborate on that?
RV: The provocative nature of my art is possibly because it comes from a sense of deep anger and dissatisfaction that I feel towards the world that we live in and there’s no other way that I am able to discuss these feelings. Having lived in a country that has always oppressed me but also inspires me, I constantly feel the need to express my strong opinions through my art.
HG: Is all of this what you imagine before starting each piece or does it come together gradually during the process? How do you begin to work and are you creating multiple pieces at once?
RV: When I feel strongly about an issue or an incident in my life, which is heavily fueled by my interactions with my progressive friends and conservative family, I try to create a mental image summarizing it using the symbols that I’m familiar with. This process is very important to me because I don’t start working on a sculpture until I have a clear picture of what I’m about to make in my head.
Sometimes if I have multiple ideas that urge me to sculpt, then I do work on making multiple pieces at once, but this is not the norm.
HG: What do your sculptures mean to you or what do you hope a viewer takes away from your work?
RV: Very often I find myself grappling with existential thoughts and my sculptures help me deal with them, as I believe that if my thoughts could exist in the same dimensions as me, then I exist as well. So, to me, it is a way of coping with the meaninglessness of life while validating the realness of my feelings.
As you can tell, I tend to use themes of gore, anatomy, humour, and progressive politics in my art. I hope that through my art, I can make complex social issues more accessible to people while provoking them to think deeper about their own bodies, the bodies they engage with and the world around them.
HG: What do you enjoy most about being an artist? What are some of the challenges you face being an artist and what do you do to overcome them?
RV: My favourite thing about being an artist is having the liberty and privilege of being able to communicate my thoughts and feelings as explicitly as I do and to have people relate to them.
One major challenge that I face includes finding the time to balance art and law school but I often find myself combining the way I approach both these areas, so that helps. Another challenge comes with the criticism that I receive from the conservative viewers of my art and my family regarding its erotic and provocative nature. To this, I either try to reason with them if I think there is a chance of constructive conversation, or I choose to ignore them.
Lastly, my mental health both aids and inhibits my creative process as I have extremely high standards for myself and find it hard to explore the medium as freely as I would like to. Sometimes I go weeks, if not months, without making anything and this is something that I am hoping to overcome soon.
Check out her work here.
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