SHARON
SHANI
About Me
I was born in London in 1957, and made aliya in 1989 and lived in Israel ever since. I studied at the College of Distributive Trades, majoring in display and design and worked at Harrod’s Department Store, the Commonwealth Institute, and the Jewish Museum, all in London. An ardent student of photography, vintage and stained glass windows, quilting, and painting for more than two decades, studied at the Artist House and Avni College located in Jaffa, and now under the tutelage of Arik Ventura. I created a series of street photography in London and New York as well as an extensive mandala project.
From The Article By Dr. Danielle Knafo
Shani began her Staying Home series in 2020. In her words: “I find that our living spaces reflect our lives, the items, the colors we surround ourselves with; the energy of feng shuiinfluences our wellbeing. I always feel privileged to be invited into people's homes, and this project displays my love for design as I insert my artistic license onto the canvas confines and collage the parts that speak2 to me most.”
In Shani’s delightful series, Staying Home, we enter people’s homes where the uniqueness of each room is highlighted in vividly colored, diversely patterned backgrounds, at times reminiscent of Matisse’s brashly captivating interiors. Objects dance and sway to Shani’s light of her art. Chandeliers and plants flow through space; artwork, sometimes crookedly hitched, adorns the walls while tiles and rugs create textures and patterns rich with color and cultural significance. We never see the people who live in these spaces, and this invites acts of imagination. Who are the people who live here? What are they like? What is life as it is lived in these rooms? Such imaginings enter our perception, imbuing the rooms with a felt sensibility, giving each room its own particular feel.
Overall, the whimsical playfulness in these decorative paintings reveals exquisite and resonant interiors as seen through the artist’s discerning and playful eye. These rooms are not photographic replicas of the rooms she paints. Rather, Shani picks and chooses what she wants to include, arranging and rearranging the chosen objects to create a joyful improvisational composition, something like a jazz tune. Each object stands alone in its flowing depiction and yet interacts with the others so suggest a dance that promises much surprise.
Although she began painting this series at the onset of COVID, when people were restricted to their homes for fear of contagion, Shani shows us that these very homes were also the source of immense pleasure and imaginative play.