Beastiality (2008) evokes the image of a lady’s handbag with a jaguar head extending at its bottom with a slender feminine torso with crossed legs perched firmly in the background. The image is then boldly ‘branded’ as ‘Cat Woman Collection’. By extending the symbol of a ladies’ handbag which could be considered as a signifier of class, wealth and exclusivity, Ventura consciously adapts these metaphors to only contest their meaning, to breach the artificial boundaries which have been developed by post-Enlightenment epistemologies between people and other living beings.  (excerpt from “Mapping The Corporeal”, 2008 essay by Shabbir Hussain Mustafa for the exhibition of the same name.

Many say that since Ronald Ventura opened his first major solo exhibition abroad, entitled Mapping The Corporeal (NUS Museum, Singapore, 2008), his career development and reputation has witnessed a truly stunning success. Renowned as a hyper-realist painter Ventura is able to combine images of fantasy and animation, often resulting in a collection of works with multi-layers of graphic ele…. 

 

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