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Insight: Week 13 | Shannon Bono
23-29 September -
INSIGHT IS A NEW ONLINE PLATFORM PRESENTED BY PIPPY HOULDSWORTH GALLERY, DEBUTING WORK BY A DIFFERENT ARTIST EACH WEEK. NEW WORK MADE DURING LOCKDOWN WILL BE HIGHLIGHTED ALONGSIDE A SHORT VIDEO PRESENTED BY THE ARTIST.
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Insight: Week 13 | Shannon Bono
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Shannon Bono uses the term 'Afrofemcentrism' to describe her practice, a consciousness adopted by Elizabeth Catlett, amongst others, that asserts race, sex and art as a way of existing where black women artists take black women as their subjects. The artist works from images of friends, family, and often her own body, expressing vulnerability and strength through nudity. Her large-scale portraits are imposing - they assert themselves through scale, gesture and gaze, advocating for their presence. Questioning power and representation, Bono draws on religious iconography and classical Western art to reclaim space and agency from a post-colonial history. She sets her figures against colourful, patterned backdrops that combine African textile design with biological structures, drawing both on her cultural heritage and background in Biochemistry. Through these macro and micro lenses, Bono considers the relationship between our internal make-up and the external forces that shape us.
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‘Shannon Bono’s paintings use the black female body as a ‘second canvas’ and are a reaction against the limiting cultural narratives that currently contextualise the black female experience.’
Oyin Akande, Wallpaper Magazine, 2020
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Press
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AnOther
1 September 2020September Is Here: The Best Things to Do This Month. By Belle Hutton
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i-D Magazine
24 August 2020Shannon Bono's art mixes divinity and biochemistry. BY Jack Sunnucks
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Elephant Magazine
6 May 2020Why These Artists Brutalize the Female Body. Three emerging London-based artists remind us that violence, disease, and pain are a fundamental part of the female experience, though the history of art has omitted it from our visual stories. By Charlotte Jansen
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POCC Mag
20 April 2020Artist Shannon Bono on reclaiming the black female body. By Eve Upton-Clark -
Show Studio
6 March 2020The exhibition Live Flesh brings together three women artists in the name of International Women's Day. By Astrid Hiort
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Wallpaper
4 March 2020Sarabande reframes femininity for International Women's Day. By Oiyin Akande
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