Offered to moccamigos members

mocamigo members are invited to visit the studio of the Canadian Artist Taking On The Global Art Market: Rajni Perera.

Artist Biography:

I explore issues of hybridity, sacrilege, irreverence, the indexical sciences, ethnography, gender, sexuality, popular culture, deities, monsters and dream worlds. All of these themes marry in a newly objectified realm of mythical symbioses. They are flattened on the medium and made to act as my personal record of impossible discoveries.

My approach to the deconstruction of the non-European, female body image, delving into the miniaturist aesthetic as in “The New Ethnology”, “The New Archaeology” and the “Yogini” series, manifests itself in the form of re-appropriated religious icons. Leveraging embellished photographic portraiture as in “Maharajas” and “Maharanis” challenges contemporary notions of masculinity viewed through the non-European, female lens.By painting these object-beings, I am engaging in a discussion with the viewing audience about the aesthetic treatment of gender and the non-European sacred and secular body in a popular culture context.

These saccharine women and stoic men, flaunting their blood, breasts and armor around and throughout the stretched paper surface, conceal violent stories and ideologies; a complex dichotomy that is not explored or discussed in internationally (or more particularly Western) circulated imagery of Hindu and Tantric gods and goddesses. It is much the same for the ethnic body image, as represented in print media and online or screen culture. The semiology becomes reduced, simplified and pared down to suit a blander ideological palette.

In my work, I seek to open and reveal the dynamism of these icons, both scripturally existent, self-invented and externally defined. I am creating a subversive aesthetic that counteracts antiquated, oppressive discourse, and acts as a restorative force through which people can move outdated, repressive modes of being towards reclaiming their power.

Limited registration. RSVP required.