Shannon Lewis

Toronto. Lives and works in Berlin.

ARTIST STATEMENT

The construction of power and pleasure underpin Shannon’s practice, which is primarily located in painting and fabric installation. There is constant play with absurd or sinister incongruities, to destabilize the unconscious archives of the viewer so power relations can shift. This strategy is also used to interrogate how the constructs of femininity are created, maintained and inconspicuously enforced. Collage and transparencies are purposely used to create new sexual symbols and codes outside of worn narratives from the fragments of what can still be useful. Dissident laughter runs throughout all of the work, where the narrator may be unreliable. This narrator hovers between wanting to desperately participate in the trappings of privilege and wanting to tear down the structures that provide them.

Vita

  • Education
  • 2012 - 2014 MFA Goldsmiths University of the Arts - London - UK
  • 2003 - 2006 BFA Ontario College of Art & Design - Toronto - CA
  • Solo Exhibitions
  • 2020 Some She Recognizes - BUTCH CUT - Berlin DE
  • 2019 Get Me Bodied - Alice Yard - Port of Spain - TT
  • 2018 Shape Shifters and Other Flows - Galerie Andreas Schmidt - Berlin - DE
  • Group Exhibitions (Selected)
  • 2019
  • Cinders, sinuous and supple - Espace Arlaud as part of “Les Urbaines Festival - Lausanne - CH
  • Chimera - Projektraum Kunstquartier Bethanien - Berlin - DE
  • Common Ground - Kühnemannstrasse 51 - Berlin - DE
  • (B)order - Para Foundation - Berlin - DE
  • 2018
  • Transformation by Enter Art Foundation - Bunker K101 - Köln - DE
  • Intersections: My World-My Community - John B. Aird Gallery - Toronto - CA
  • Some She Recognizes - B.U.T.C.H. Cut - Berlin - DE
  • 2017
  • Certain Blacks - GSL Projekt - Berlin - DE
  • A More Perfect Union - Asian Arts Initiative - Philadelphia - USA
  • Loving Blackness - Asian Arts Initiative - Philadelphia - USA
  • Golden Brown Girls: Lanais Love and Lies - Transmediale Vorspiel - Alpha Nova Galerie Futura - Berlin - DE
  • 2016
  • My Future Nonidentity Will… - Tête Gallery - Berlin - DE
  • 2015
  • Nesting: The Makings of Home - Joan Mitchell Foundation - New Orleans - USA
  • 2014
  • The City - Performance with Indrani Ashe - London - UK
  • 2010
  • Made You Look - Toronto’s Manifesto Arts Festival - 99 Sudbury - Toronto - CA
  • From the Soul: Scotiabank Caribana Art Exhibit - Royal Ontario Museum - Toronto - CA
  • 2006
  • Square by Square Foot Exhibition Awol Gallery - Toronto - CA
  • Publications
  • 2017 Complicating The Notion of Identity - Contemporary And
  • 2016 Diese 8 feministischen Webserien füllen jedes Sommerloch Missy Magazine
  • Grants
  • 2019 Canada Council For The Arts (February and October)
  • Residencies
  • 2019 Alice Yard - Port of Spain - TT
  • Collections
  • Princess Deena Aljuhani Abdulaziz
  • Prince Fahad Bin Faisal Bin Saud Al Saud
  • RTL (Radio Television Luxemburg) II, Television Network

To: Shannon Lewis

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Works by Shannon Lewis