Blue is the warmest color? Introduce Indian, but Cape Town based young talent, Shakil Solanki.
“My work, primary printmaking-based, focuses on the landscape of a private garden, in which one houses their innermost dreams, desires and truths. Within this organic landscape, I interrogate the shifting dynamics of intimacy; both its dangers and beauties. The sensation of sensuality is beautiful, like no other, but with the greatest capacity for pain and violence. The works observe these tenuous subtleties of desire, love, heartbreak and longing. Intricate environments are splayed through with homoerotic figures in ambiguous trysts, seething with tension and modicums of pain underneath. Bodies twist and contort in the same manner as the blossoming flora surrounding them, caught in a permanent flux. An ambiguity is found where the bodies intersect- they wrestle, consummate, rage, and find tenderness with one another. Meditative spaces of introspection and intimacy are opened, reflecting an emotional vulnerability, via recognition of our most susceptible tendencies.” – Shakil Solanki
“On an aesthetic level, these works reference 17th Century Indian and Iranian miniatures, and 18th Century Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints, cited for their incredible intricacy, mark-making and detail. A great deal of inspiration was also taken from the work of David Hockney and Salman Toor; both artists hold beautifully singular ways of portraying queer romance and intimacy, helping inform my own decisions in building my own artistic language of passion. The writing of Derek Jarman, Allan Hollinghurst, Yukio Mishima and Damon Galgut have also provided great amounts of inspiration. My own position as a queer Indian man has also proved pivotal in constructing an intensely personal artistic identity.” – Shakil Solanki
Grief and Lust meet beneath a Moonlit Sky (series)
Grief and Lust meet beneath a Moonlit Sky (series)
Find more: @isolank / @shakilsolanki_studio
