Although the artist only recently debuted his canvases, Kapoor has been painting for decades. Kapoor is a self-proclaimed ‘painter who makes sculptures,’ underlining his extensive relationship with the medium. Kapoor’s paintings are not a departure from his recognizable void works and mirrored sculptures, but instead an extension of his practice. These works delve into Kapoor’s interest in the object in space and strive to provide insight into the unknown. Visceral and intense, the paintings represent the ritualistic nature of his work. Each painting goes deeper than its physical presence on the wall, and offers a glimpse into the inner workings of our mind and body. Exploding with deep reds and vivid yellows contrasted against brooding, dark backgrounds, these works confront our origin and the unknown.

Here, the paintings approach the artist’s interest in the colour red and in blood as a ritual material. The artist says ‘It seems to me that there are two ritual materials, and only two. One is earth and the other is blood, and then they are deeply connected to each other.’ (Anish Kapoor in Conversation with Marcello Dantas, 2019, Aniah Kapoor website). The striking red applied on the canvas alludes to the menstrual blood which acted as the binding material for community in early humanity. The red erupts from blackness volcanically, as if exiting the void of creation. Dynamic gestures endow the paintings with a sense of urgency, calling viewers to explore their internal condition. Unlike the autogenerated nature of the artist’s seminal 1000 Names series, the paintings reveal Kapoor’s hand, and in a sense the inner workings of his subconscious.

Kapoor first exhibited his work at the Venice Biennale in 1990. The artist’s return to the city marks his affinity with the longstanding tradition of oil painting. These paintings are undeniably linked with such Renaissance masters as Caravaggio and Titian. The dark backgrounds contrasted with an active foreground reveals a loyalty between Kapoors painting and Renaissance practices. The artist maintains the sense that a major event takes place on the canvas without the need for an image. Kapoor’s progression of painting demonstrates a continuation of the formal practice of painting that utilises new techniques to discover fundamental truths of the human experience.