The Illustrations of Victo Ngai: The Female Outlook on Kama Sutra

The Chinese illustrator Victo (the short form of Victoria) Ngai (b. 1988) is a sought-after illustrator who works with the New York Times and creates storyboards for Dreamworks and advertisement campaigns for Apple. The list of Victo's commissions proves her artistic versatility, thus, it comes as no surprise that in 2018 she was asked to illustrate the ancient treatise on achieving sensual joy. Let's mention that, allegedly, Victo happened to be the first woman among all the artists who provided images for many editions of this famous Vatsyayana's compendium. 

Fig. 1. Victo Ngai (miro.medium.com) 

Fig. 2. Kama Sutra 2018 edition (victo-ngai.com) 

Fig. 3. victo-ngai.com 

All You Need is Luck 

The popularity and professional success of Victo Ngai may create the impression that she had been training from an infant age and graduated from several art schools. In fact, when Victo enrolled at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2006, all her previous training was two summers with a private art teacher in Shenzhen. Thus, she confesses that the first year of her studies was the most difficult, as she "had no idea what the technical terms meant or which artists people were referencing to." Nevertheless, Victo's works sparked the interest of her professor's wife, who ran a magazine. This way, upon graduation, the artist had a portfolio of published illustrations that she showed to Aviva Michaelov, the design director of the New York Times, who soon became her commissioner. 

Fig. 4. victo-ngai.com 

Fig. 5. victo-ngai.com 

Fig.6 victo-ngai.com 

Fig.7 victo-ngai.com 

Fig.8 victo-ngai.com 

Working on Kama Sutra 

The book was commissioned by the Folio Society, which issues the lushly illustrated limited editions of classic literary works. Interestingly, it was Victo who suggested this book to The Folio Society's art director Sheri Gee several years before, though, at that moment, she hadn't read it. One may guess it could be a spontaneous idea or Victo's wish to challenge herself. 

Continue reading in Premium and learn more about Ngai's main goal for her "Kama Sutra" illustrations, the used aesthetics, the influence of shunga, and numerous additional images.

Victo Ngai is active on Instagram

Click HERE for the eroticism and sensuality in The Tale of Genji as interpreted by Yoshitaka Amano

Sources: Wikipedia.org; victo-ngai.com; instagram.com/victongai/; finebooksmagazine.com

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