Shani Black
Accidental Retail Compositions
28 Feb - 10 Mar 2024
G3
Opening Night
Friday 1 Mar | 6 - 8pm
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In a celebration of the mundane, this body of work is a series of still life paintings inspired by the coat hanger stand at Black’s retail job. All works are based on photographs taken of the chance configurations the hangers found themselves in after being thrown on their stand after sales.
Black works in a tourist town, where during the Winter months they go hours without someone walking through the door. This resulted in the rare occasion of the hangers tangling in an outlandish position becoming the most memorable part of her job. Even when sales picked up through the year, everyone she worked with knew they weren’t allowed to touch any bizarre hangers until she had her photograph.
All works are painted on found glass. Black wanted to utilise a used/sustainable matrix in an attempt to allay the fact that the subject matter is a small but essential part of the fast fashion industry. It is also a nod to the glass cabinets and mirrors that everyone in a retail job has had to clean at some point as a rite of passage.
Each work is framed in a deep frame that enables them to appear suspended several centimetres away from the wall, in order to create a shadow. Black always intended to display the works in this fashion to allude to the shadows created by the original subjects.
Artist Bio
Shani Black is an emerging artist currently practicing on Yuin Country. She moved there in early 2022 from Sydney after obtaining her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the National Art School with a major in printmaking.
Black has an interest in dissecting the rituals, beliefs and problems of contemporary society through satire and allegory. She has a keen interest in art history - particularly Western religious art - and pop culture, and often combines these interests in her practice through appropriation.
Black is currently exploring aspects of her everyday life through oil painting while in the long process of setting up a printmaking studio.
She has been a finalist in several art prizes and the recipient of two residencies - including a printmaking residency in Venice at the Scuola di Grafica that she will undertake in September 2024.
Contact
Phone : (03) 9482 3550
mail@redgallery.com.au
Address
157 St Georges Rd
Fitzroy North, Victoria, 3068
Map
How to get here
Tram: route 11
Stop 21 just north of Edinburgh Gardens
Melway ref: 30B12
Parking in nearby streets
Bus: 504 (Reid Street)
