Shani Rhys James | States of Mind

Connaught Brown is delighted to present States of Mind, an exhibition of new paintings by the acclaimed Welsh artist Shani Rhys James.

For over forty years Rhys James has been both unwavering voice for a generation of female painters and for the development and promotion of Welsh contemporary art.

In this exhibition, Rhys James focuses on the conflict and co-existence of opposing states: life and death, home and studio, motherhood and work, beauty within darkness. These dualities are represented by the juxtaposition of figures and objects, flowers displaying both the temporality of life and the glory of nature, and thick daubes of paint creating abstraction within figuration. This body of work represents a period of fluctuation in the artist's life and a searching to understand its paradoxes.

States of Mind is Rhys James’ seventh solo exhibition at Connaught Brown. Rhys James has been awarded numerous prizes including the Jerwood prize in 2003, the National Portrait Award, Mostyn Open, Hunting Prize, the Gold Medal at the National Eisteddfod of Wales and an MBE for services to Welsh art. In 2020, Charleston Trust held a retrospective of her work. Rhys James has also been the focus of many documentaries, including the 2014 BBC show What Do Artists Do All Day and the 2021 The Story of Welsh Art also on BBC. Her paintings are in such collections as National Museum, Cardiff; National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth; Arts Council of England; Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow; Victoria Gallery, Bath; Jerwood Foundation; Pallant House Gallery, Chichester.