TextaQueen – Artist Profile

by

Arts writer Sydney

Reclamation Royalty

In their new series, TextaQueen challenges Bollywood cinema by creating fictional posters that showcase alternative South Asian communities unrepresented by this mainstream hetero pop culture phenomenon.

By Arts Writer, Victoria Hynes

Bollywood film posters are a flamboyant genre, usually peopled by swooning women and alpha males set against backgrounds of ecstatic colour. In a new exhibition at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art in Sydney, the artist TextaQueen happily pops the bubble of this conventional stylistic trope, pronouncing that “the show will show what Bollywood couldn’t.”

The premise of the exhibition was formulated during a residency at ACME in London in 2019. There, the artist connected and collaborated with queer and trans South Asians to create portraits of them in the format of fictional Bollywood posters, subverting the traditional formula to represent marginalised cultural identities.

TextaQueen, a queer, disabled, non-binary ‘femme’, has always been driven to actively address issues of ‘other-ness’ through their art practice, representing those culturally diverse members of the community often ostracised from mainstream society.

“This work is an energetic offering that will inspire us South Asians to think about our relationship with the White Gaze,” explains TextaQueen. “How each of us can anchor on our subtext or prejudice and what we can do to dissolve it.”

Born in 1975 in Perth to Indian parents, who were migrants from Goa, TextaQueen studied fine arts at the University of Western Australia, and later interactive media at Metro Screen in Sydney. They sought out art as a means through which to explore and understand their identity as a queer, Brownskinned immigrant kid growing up in a still very monocultural Australian city.

Since art school, and for over two decades now, the artist has defined their art practice through the use of the humble felt tipped marker. With meticulous detail and vivid colour, they adroitly create illustrative portraits on paper using a rainbow of vibrant-coloured texta pens. Initially it was a means of survival, as textas were an affordable marker that could be found at the local supermarket. Sketching became an immediate and democratic means of making images. Using everyday markers, however, also became a clever mechanism for drawing viewers in then subverting their common childhood associations with these household pens. Bold and playful, the artist’s bright illustrations are deceptively attractive, but below the surface the artworks are highly political and explore complex issues. For this artist, drawing is a means by which to deconstruct all forms of oppression.

Focusing on portraiture, the artist is perhaps best known for their TextaNudes, sassy ‘undressed’ portraits of friends, intimates and members of the queer community. Bold and unashamedly brazen, these ‘pin ups’ challenged traditional notions of gender, race and sexuality and shone a spotlight on other forms of identity. There is no timidity in these subjects – they gaze directly and defiantly out at the viewer. Other previous work, such as the Coconut Legacy series, featured self-portraits of the artist drawn in tropical locations, surrounded by coconuts and chocolate brown ‘Chico’ baby lollies, playing with notions of colonialism and racism.

Having completed several major residencies throughout their career, starting with an Australia Council for the Arts residency in New York in 2005, TextaQueen has expanded their practice to include photography, film, painting, video, printmaking, writing and mural making. They have created animations for the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra and SBS TV, as well as for the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI). Another key element for the artist has been performance. Over the years they have dressed up as their TextaQueen alter-ego, fitted in a red superhero costume festooned with colourful felt tipped markers attached to their hair and holster belt. Through these performances, the artist would entertain, engage with and challenge their audience all the same time.

With over sixteen solo exhibitions held in Australia, the USA and Canada – including a survey show of artwork commissioned by the Mornington Peninsula Art Gallery that toured Victoria in 2017 – TextaQueen has become an established artist, with works held in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Monash University of Modern Art, National Portrait Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of Western Australia and University of Queensland. Yet in spite of this, their subversive attitude remains fiercely alive.

This current series of drawings being shown at 4A follows on from earlier poster series’ such as We Don’t Need Another Hero (2011), where the artist drew First Nations people and people of colour in fictional movie posters “battling the apocalypses of colonialism.” In Bollywouldn’t, the portraits are a direct result of the working relationship between the sitter and the artist. These works on paper have then been photographed and projected onto colonial buildings, appearing as a fictional map where queer and trans people are viewed as prominent figures on major public edifices. TextaQueen remarks that the works

“create an alternative, expanding universe where we don’t exist within or in opposition to these hierarchies. They are not intended as a reaction but as action.”

By deconstructing a long history of colonialism, the artworks give agency back to South Asians, particularly those from fringe communities. For this artist, visually embodying their own community as part of the South Asian diaspora is also a healing experience.

In ‘posters’ such as Kali ka Choti Behen (2022), TextaQueen depicts three brown queer community activists drawn as a single three headed deity. The artist remarks: “With many of the portraits, the subject and I came up with a concept and I developed the imagery, checking in with them. But with this portrait, the subjects gave me most every detail – a lot of the imagery is very personal to them.” They hold objects and wear jeans with patches that are pertinent to their histories; in the background two large eyes look out, with rivers of tears and blood flowing down the composition. In Shama the Flame (2022) the subject is pregnant, represented by a small candle lit inside her belly. Her name translates as ‘flame’ and is also culturally associated with the saying ‘moth to a flame’. This is portrayed by a swarm of mottled moths flying towards her belly as fluorescent fires blaze around her. TextaQueen comments:

“The moths and flame allude to the attention her pregnancy brought to her body, and the entitlement others felt to touch her belly, while she feels empowerment in creating life and her capacity for protection.”

The exhibition will be accompanied by a rich and lively public program, including performances, publications by South Asian queer and trans writers who will respond to the works on display, and a colouring-in book for children.

TextaQueen intends to continue collaborating with other diasporic people through their practice, and they are currently developing a peer mentorship residency for diverse and disabled artists in their shopfront studio in Melbourne’s Collingwood, on Wurundjeri land.

In a photographic self-portrait associated with the current exhibition, TextaQueen stands on a beach swathed in a cavalcade of fibrous seaweed – a fiercely regal aquatic gladiator. The artist’s extensive followers can have confidence that this creative warrior will continue to focus a spotlight on empowering marginalised peoples. Armed not with a sword but with their trusty texta, the artist will continue cutting through cultural and social biases and exposing ignorance in order to enlighten the public about significant issues of race, gender and sexuality.

TextaQueen: Bollywouldn’t shows at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney
from October 22 to December 18, 2022.

www. textaqueen.com

Victoria Hynes is a Sydney-based arts writer and editor.

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