This portrait series is inspired by low budget “slasher” horror films of the late 1970s and 80s, Mughal portraiture, and Indian textiles. The compositions of these paintings reference a common scene found in “slasher” films - a quick framed shot of the killer’s raised arm, usually holding a knife or weapon or sharp claws, just before it slashes its next victim. In the portraits, jungle cats are the killer while referencing colonialism and imperialism as many European nations and monarchies use these animals in their coat of arms.
These small works on canvas use tight and awkward cropping of the subjects’ upper torsos focusing on the neck to heighten lust and kink, recall dark power dynamics and vulnerability, while also exploring imperialism, pattern and our relationship to nature.
The works also make a case for conservation. As urban and farmland expansion continues, natural animal habitats are dwindling all over the world making human and animal conflict increasingly common.
The Slasher Portraits
The Slasher Landscapes are the next phase of the SLASHERS series. This suite of artworks focus on our relationship to land and the divine. In the earlier Slasher Portraits, the creature reaches up for the neck but in these landscapes it reaches out to the sky lending an existential quality to each landscape.
The animals interrupting the landscape stand in for colonialism and imperialism as many European nations and monarchies use these animals in their coat of arms. With the claw extending to a heaven in the sky, the creatures allude to ‘Manifest Destiny’ as they conquer these landscapes.
But the use of these apex predators of the jungle is layered. Many indigenous cultures around the world view these animals as deities and thus can be seen as protectors of landscapes. They reach out to a heaven for solitude, salvation, revelations of our time and place, and reference our ceremonial and spiritual relationship to nature.
The Slasher Landscapes
