Shani Rhys James: Floribunda

Shani Rhys James' latest works stand defiantly before us. They demand that we abandon all that we know or thought we knew about this painter's work and that we consider these canvases with new, raw, eyes. Like that of many great artists before her, Rhys James' work has often been misinterpreted: hers has too often been seen by art historians to be an art chiefly concerning the female self-portrait. Yet there is more to this art than a simple exploration of self. Like the late Lucien Freud, Rhys James uses her own entity, the surfaces and contours of her own person, to explore the temporality of the human form as affected by one's surroundings.