There are all these rules about openings in the body, about things leaking out. That’s interesting to me—the body out of control.
—Louise Bonnet

Gagosian is pleased to present Onslaught, an exhibition of new paintings by Louise Bonnet that coincides with her inclusion in The Milk of Dreams at the 59th Biennale di Venezia, which opened on April 23. This is her first exhibition in Asia and comprises two groupings of three large canvases, displayed as triptychs.

In Onslaught, Bonnet focuses on corporeal fluids as objects of societal disgust, investigating art historical precedents for their depiction and considering the ways in which modern aesthetic and ideological conventions complicate the ways in which they are now received (“We are much more prudish about certain things now than people were in the 1500s,” she observes). The paintings explore our sense of mortification at our own bodies and the way they seem to betray us by leaking, sagging, or failing in various ways. “I’m interested in shame and the body in my paintings,” she states, “and bodily functions bring extra shame and embarrassment.”

Gallery address: 7/F Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central