PRESS RELEASE
SHANY VAN DEN BERG | A Place to Bloom
Nov 14 – Dec 13, 2025
SHANY VAN DEN BERG
A PLACE TO BLOOM
14 November - 13 December 2025
Shany van den Berg’s nudes and floral still lifes are lush and vegetal and exemplify her profound connection to nature, womanhood and her place in the world. For the artist, motifs from the natural world centre on the cycles of changing seasons which are mirrored in family lines and individual lives.
Her reclining nudes trace their lineage to the Renaissance masters and the Neoclassical movement - most notably Giorgione, Titian and Ingres - and continue an intimate conversation across time. The curves and palette of her florals might take inspiration from the likes of Georgie O’Keefe, but they are largely the vibrant inventions of her imagination.
These new works revel in the dialogue between the human form and the natural world. I arrange flowers in vases and figures in gardens, with a similar eye for composition, exploring how the curve of a voluptuous vase echoes the sensuous curves of a human body. My intention is to create a sense of harmonious tension, where the cultivated and the wild, the temporary and the timeless, exist in a single, balanced frame. I think of my paintings as both a celebration of colour and form, but also a meditation on stillness and the ephemeral beauty to be found in the quiet, often-overlooked spaces between the domestic and the wild.
- Shany van den Berg
