21 maart 2016

Yinka Shonibare #5


Yinka Shonibare in his London studio.

"Less than a decade ago, when Yinka Shonibare RA bought his studio fronting on to the Regent’s Canal in east London, the neighbourhood was still, in his words, “distinctly rough at the edges and slightly scary”. Now this area of Hackney is alive with artisan cafés and the whizz-ding sound of expensive bicycles speeding along the regenerated towpath. Shonibare is at the epicentre of urban gentrification. Elegant in sharp blue suit, he presumably set the trend rather than followed? He chuckles gently at the idea. “As if. This was always an area with a lot of studios and a lot of artists, still affordable back in 2008.” The building used to be a carpet warehouse.

Shonibare opened up the roof space, had the partition walls pulled down, sand-blasted the wood floor and instructed his architect to “renovate it so that it is still like a warehouse and feels as if nothing has been done”. Exposed brick, whitewash and a big skylight achieve exactly that. The first-floor space, airy and well ordered, is where he develops most of his projects, and where his team of three work. “And it’s where I meet with sculptors, costumiers, photographers, printmakers – the people I collaborate with.”

He draws and makes other work on paper either here, or at his studio at home in Bow. His series of prints about twins are displayed on the wall.
...." (bron: The Royal Academy of Arts)

> Yinka Shonibare

Geen opmerkingen:

Een reactie posten