Shaan Bevan: Inundation | DES BAINS
As her new exhibition’s title suggests, the multi-media artist Shaan Bevan is deeply interested in flowing water. In this single-room gallery, there are C prints of crashing waterfalls and waves, and intricate pencil drawings and stained glass depicting water, too, ebbing and flowing.
Bevan, who has a history of chronic illness, seems to find healing in these natural systems. But flowing water could remind us of a flood of tears, too. Both emotions seem to intermingle in the works on show.
It’s not all wild nature. Human constraint comes in the form of carefully-shaped sweet chestnut wood frames, and the buffed alumninium poles and screws that constrain that deep red stained glass at the end of the room.
On the floor, there are two mysterious objects: cylindrical rollers, made of sweet chestnut wood and set on aluminium poles. Looking back at those C print photos of fast-flowing rivers, and you’ll notice that these rollers are stuck in the centre of them, semi-submerged.
The water must be making the wooden cylinders, shaped by man, spin. Both the man-made and the natural, just keep rolling along.
Shaan Bevan: Inundation is at DES BAINS (London). 24 April - 25 May 2024