Shani Bensimon




Silk–Mulberry



Mulberry trees evolved iminosugars and phenolics to repel herbivores; silkworms evolved enzymes to bypass them. In nature these materials never meet structurally - fibroin is synthesised in isolated silk glands; mulberry chemistry stays in the gut. Their co-evolution is a long antagonism without fusion.

Here, fibroin I extracted from discarded silk garments is brushed onto mulberry kozo. Chemistry that evolved as defence becomes structural cross-linking.




2025-2026

Mullberry fibers, silk protein, rose madder pigment








Calcium waves marking fertilization of Ciona egg. Credit video: Hiro Ishii and Tomomi Tani.

The separations of the seas


In Babylonian mythology, the world began with a division - the primordial sea splitting into fresh water and salt water.

This sculpture continues that boundary. An egg membrane, filled with fresh water, placed in the ocean. The semi-permeable skin passes water molecules but holds salt ions back - a  threshold between two worlds.

The shell was dissolved away, and its calcium returned to the water held inside - echoing the calcium waves that mark the very first moment of animal life, the same ion that later drives the rhythmic contractions of a beating heart.

Built from piezoelectric material, every shift in shape emits a signal. Some animals can sense it.



egg, water, ocean
2024





For The Ones Who Tried to Trick Charon ; 
Living Water !!


oil based ink on cotton, gilded one penny coins, water, cement and marble dust basin.



Copper etching, aquatint

2026




Self Portrait 

Silk Damask: recycled silk protein on silk fabric

2026

Measure of Man ( Suited)


Horse Hair Canvas, Lapis Lazuli

The painting's width is tailored to the measure of the painting owner’s cubit; 
the length is that cubit, in ratio to the fine-structure constant: a dimensionless number that links matter across scales, from atoms to the cosmos.

Horse hair canvas is a material traditionally used in fine tailoring.



Rules:
• Every time the painting is re-sold, the painting dimension will be re-adjusted to the new owner’s cubit. 

• Past Provenance will stay visible. 




2025- work in progress

Vision of The Vally of Dry Bones



oil on canvas, oil on wood

18x13cm each

2025


Anointed Painting



oil on canvas,  anointing oil


50x80cm
2024- work in progress


Constable’s Pine tree, today
distilled turpentine
John Constable’s Pine tree, c.1833
Volatile Organic Compounds

I collected resin from Constable’s pine tree and distilled it into turpentine. The turpentine is intended for conservation laboratories to restore Constable’s paintings.

Turpentine is a solvent; highly volatile and can easily dissolve an image - but it can also reunite and stabilize fragmented layers of paint.


a transparent, conceptual painting nested within Constable’s own.

2024-2025




Volatile organic Compounds II


A by-product of the distillation is rosin- a material traditionally used in aquatint copper etching.

A unified layer of oil-based ink was applied to the copper plate; the image was painted with Constable’s tree turpentine, dissolving the ink which created the white areas.

2024