Shaan Bevan


Quarry



18/07/24 - 14/09/24


via Posillipo 23, Napoli

Shaan Bevan presents a new series of drawings depicting the surface of water and sculptural works developed in an abandoned quarry in proximity to the artist’s studio in the South of France. In Bevan’s practice drawing is a spiritual exercise: much like Agnes Martin or Irma Blank, drawing is a daily exercise where the millimetric juxtaposition of the strokes - their individual form - is as important as the larger figurative ambition of the works. Half calligraphic and half expressive these drawings often reference a sense of mystery for nature’s sublime coupled with an intensely deep scientific insight into its molecular (sometimes even atomic) inner workings. The artist developed this sensibility halfway through the scientific and the mystic during a period of illness in which she was compelled to study the prophylaxis of her cures and medicines in depth, and finding in these an alchemic revelation. Meanwhile illness (physical, mental) prompted her to develop an acute sensibility for the observation of nature, revealing the deeper patterns of reality which she started to obsessively attempt to represent on paper. The resulting works are to be seen as striking mandalas, collapsing deep retinal observation with a deeper quest for abstract knowledge.