Bare-chested women stare solemnly outwards at the viewer, their poses at times proud and at others self-conscious, each muscle rendered in precise, beautiful detail. In his upcoming solo exhibition, Nangeli, at Kristin Hjellegjerde’s Wandsworth gallery in London, Pakistani artist Muhammad Zeeshan draws on the 19th-century legend of a woman called Nangeli who supposedly cut off her breasts in …
Bare-chested women stare solemnly outwards at the viewer, their poses at times proud and at others self-conscious, each muscle rendered in precise, beautiful detail. In his upcoming solo exhibition, Nangeli, at Kristin Hjellegjerde’s Wandsworth gallery in London, Pakistani artist Muhammad Zeeshan draws on the 19th-century legend of a woman called Nangeli who supposedly cut off her breasts in protest against a caste-based ‘breast tax’. Traditionally, the baring of breasts in the Keralan state of India was seen as a mark of respect to higher-status people and significantly, the tax, which was …
