Artist Statement
My practice interrogates structures- of materials, architectures, and narratives- and how they can be reformed into new models. I create works that are not static objects but systems: platforms for interaction, or portals into liminal zones where different realities, temporalities, and ecosystems converge.
I’m drawn to the almost-invisible: what slips between established frames of reference. I think of it as resisting lossy compression, finding meaning in what our senses usually discard. My membrane sculptures act as veils between worlds, translucent thresholds where a freshwater fish might encounter its saltwater counterpart- a poetic echo of the primordial sea, before separation into parts.
I work across multiple lenses: art history as self-referential material; theology and symbolism as frameworks to read institutional patterns, but also as sincere explorations of what the “divine” might mean to me.
I approach materials in the same way- with attention to their origins, qualities, and agency.My work often extends into experimental material processes, where unexpected compatibilities reveal new sculptural possibilities.
Art and life for me are inseparable. The work is an ongoing insistence on seeing reality with fresh eyes, and on reconsidering what we think we know.
Bio
Shani Bensimon (b. 1986, Israel) studied at the Slade School of Fine Art (UCL, London, 2017) and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (Maine, 2019). Her work has been shown in New Contemporaries (South Sondon Gallery; Touring to Liverpool Biennial) and in group exhibitions at Kunstverein am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin, and Matt’s Gallery, London. She is currently developing projects exploring light refraction and paint- silk-encryption, bio-materials, and symbolic systems.