Something old, new

Torn between her traditional strokes in portraiture and contemporary art culture, Shaanea seeks to find a balance, and hopes to display a collection of work that depicts this dichotomy. She wishes to make a statement that different styles of art can coexist even in the body of work of an emerging contemporary artist such as herself.

Some may think the work to be influenced by a ‘split personality.’ She feels that each individual work is a definite reflection of her environment and mood, and according to her, there are many. It could also be the exposure to different aspects of society through the years that influences these extremes in her style.

Shaanea feels her talent in a0rt was nurtured rather unconsciously from an early age as her mother Oranea too is an art enthusiast, though a chartered accountant by profession. Portraits of J.F. Kennedy and Geraldine Chaplin among others painted by her mother dating back to as early as 1965, adorned the walls of Shaanea’s home in her growing years, and were probably among her first influences.

She also remembers accompanying her mother and brother Jehan, to Stanley Abeysinghe’s studio and home, where her mother took classes. She remembers Abeysinghe painting individual water colour portraits of both her and her brother in less than an hour, and to date the two portraits hang in the living room of their parents’ home.

Shaanea’s very first art classes outside of school took place at Cora Abraham’s Melbourne Art School. She does not recall how young she was, but she does recall loving drawing as far back as her memory allows her to remember. Eyeing and ogling the expensive oil colours, brushes and rolled up canvas that her mother had, but would never let her touch at an early age. Soon after completing her O Levels, Shaanea went on to pursue art as a subject for her London A Level examination and studied under the guidance of Shyamala Pinto Jayawardene at Ladies’ College.

At around the same time, she was introduced by her mother to Nadine David’s art classes. At this point of time, although Shaanea had always loved drawing and envied her mother for her inherent talent for obtaining a likeness in her portraits, she never believed that she would ever be able to develop a skill for portraits and figures.  Here’s where Nadine David changed her world. Shaanea is ever grateful for the guidance she received and mentoring from Nadine David, for the encouragement she received to pursue her dream of studying art further, and even pushed her with her application to Lasalle College of the Arts Singapore.

At Lasalle, Shaanea was exposed to a very different world of art than she had been used to. The expectations were different. Things got conceptual. Often she was left confused and infuriated after gruelling critique sessions, as were most of her peers at some point or another. There was no wrong or right. Black or white. Drawing skills at certain points of time seemed not to matter. Everything boiled down to ‘subjective’ opinions of a panel of lecturers, and sometimes each individual seemed to have a different view to the other, often conflicting. Work that took less time and effort was often praised, and others that took blood sweat and tears were critiqued harshly.

Amidst all of this, what it did do was make her question everything, her motives, audience perceptions. She says the harsh criticism definitely got her to think, kept her on her toes and never got her complacent.

She believes in being honest with herself in her work, whatever the outcome. A firm belief in her skill and doing what she loves to do, whether it will bring her popularity, fame or fortune is irrelevant and she will not compromise on producing work that comes from an honest place. The training at Lasalle definitely opened up her mind to seeing new perspectives in art. Accepting that art is ever evolving. The training her lecturers left her with at Lasalle was about a way of thought, perception of art, readying her for what she was to face in a culture of Art that is ‘current’, be it ‘modern’ to a lay person, ‘po-mo’ (post modern) or even ‘post post’ modern to others more familiar with the evolving phases of art. She feels the need for the evolution of the art process within her too, to take it’s time.  

In Shaanea’s final year thesis, she questioned the very definition of the act of ‘drawing.’ One dictionary definition was that drawing as a verb was the act of producing a mark or line of a surface.

Shaanea’s curiosity for the exploration of the definition of ‘drawing’ came about with her unique interest in pen and ink drawings by creating marks and lines that are influenced by microscopic like textures and patterns she observes in our natural environment.  The bark of a tree, the veins of a leaf, the pattern of a fingerprint are a few examples of what catches her curious eye, making her want to replicate that into a work of art, through her manipulation of the memories of these marks.

Her interpretation of the process for how the marks regenerate. It’s repetitive characteristic. The meditative nature in the process of creating the marks is all characteristics of the work that she would like the viewer to observe for themselves.

Shaanea’s Lasalle experience encouraged her to push her boundaries and the her style of black and white line drawings morphed into rust stains on canvas, and relief sculptures , with the ‘element of chance’ in her work, like that of the process of creation of her inspirations that came from nature.

In this her first solo exhibition, viewers of Shaanea’s work will be able to experience about forty different works, witnessing both her traditional strokes of oil on canvas, depicting portraits from her travels at sea, as well as her unique expression of imaginary textures through the form of pen and ink on paper, and rust stains on canvas.

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