Video

Fracture and Fragment

"Every act of creation is first an act of destruction." Pablo Picasso

Sandra Shashou’s new body of work, comprising of arrangements of smashed fragments of bone china tea sets, oscillates between modalities of dissolution and reformulation, order and rupture, and historical eras.

Her source material is the bone china produced by Europe’s finest porcelain manufacturers, as the titles of her works indicate – Hamilton, Argyle, Tuscan, Royal Albert, Wedgwood, Limoges, Meito hand-painted and Cobalt – and collected by her from dealers and flea markets. The designs range across centuries and topographies: in one work the lemons and blues of Art Deco, in another the crimson of Edwardian and Victorian designs, and in a third the blue tracery of Chinoiserie.

Shashou brings these tea sets back to her studio and using a small hammer she shatters, punctures, chips and fragments. And yet the shapes of the original crockery are somehow preserved and repurposed in her intricate constructions. The curves of the broken tea sets undulate across simple rectangular surfaces, or swirl around rotundas with a baroque flamboyance. In some the pieces lock tightly together as if part of some giant Cubist puzzle, in other shards seem to be caught in the freeze frame of a constructivist explosion. Her chromatically rich, harmonious works match crimsons, mustard yellows and pinks, or mauve, turquoise and blue. Set in a gold or white ground, Shashou’s fragments unfold like Jackson Pollock’s all-over paintings – only shattered, not splattered.

Shashou has found inspiration in the Japanese art of Kintsugi, in which broken bowls were repaired with beautiful golden joins, so fashionable in the 17th century, that people were accused of deliberately smashing valuable pottery so it could be remade in this manner.

Some may read a social comment in her work, a playful rupturing of bourgeois values. The order and tranquillity of a daily routine, with its echoes of Victorian Britain, Alice in Wonderland and social conformity, tea-time, has been literally shattered.

Shashou herself prefers to foreground the emotional and biographical metaphors embedded in the work. Smashing crockery is, after all, a time-honoured feature of the lovers’ row. “Breakage and fractures are part of the chance and fate of human life, part of our personal history,” she says, "I embrace vulnerability and fragility. In truth that is how we reveal ourselves and really connect.” When Shashou has looked back on love that has disintegrated, and reflected on the times when she has felt ‘shattered’, she has realised that the pieces have rearranged themselves in a new harmonious order. “They fitted together but not they did before."

OIL PORTRAITS

Shashou has combined her love of art and people in creating unique contemporary portraits. These are based on a couple of studio sittings and digital photographs taken by the artist who together with the subject, works in choosing the photograph which most captures their likeness and spirit, making the experience of being painted as special as the portraits themselves.

Ali 150x130x5cm | Oil on Linen, Poker Chips | 2016  

Alan Bennett 140x125x5cm | Oil on Linen | 2006  

Paris 90x80x5cm | Oil on Linen | 2015  

Mandela 150x150x5cm | Oil on Linen, Broken Ceramics | 2015  

Katherine 90x80x5cm | Oil on Linen | 2015  

Ethan 90x80x5cm | Oil on Linen | 2015  

Pasha 80x80x5cm | Oil on Linen | 2012  

Nima 80x80x5cm | Oil on Linen | 2012  

OIL PORTRAITS

Shashou has combined her love of art and people in creating unique contemporary portraits. These are based on a couple of studio sittings and digital photographs taken by the artist who together with the subject, works in choosing the photograph which most captures their likeness and spirit, making the experience of being painted as special as the portraits themselves.

Alan Bennett 140x125x5cm | Oil on Linen | 2006  

Ali 150x130x5cm | Oil on Linen, Poker Chips | 2016  

Mandela 150x150x5cm | Oil on Linen, Broken Ceramics | 2015  

Paris 90x80x5cm | Oil on Linen | 2015  

Ethan 90x80x5cm | Oil on Linen | 2015  

Katherine 90x80x5cm | Oil on Linen | 2015  

Nima 80x80x5cm | Oil on Linen | 2012  

Pasha 80x80x5cm | Oil on Linen | 2012  

Open chat
Need Help?
Hello,
Can we help you?