My first solo exhibition brought a central painting into live tattooing, related symbols, paste-ups and the changing room around them.
My first solo exhibition
Life in Progress was my first solo exhibition. Looking back, I can see the beginning of a structure that might become a collection: one central painting, related works, returning symbols and a live action that lets the work leave the wall.
I am not calling it a collection by default. I am keeping the question open because this was the first time the practice operated as one connected system rather than a group of separate paintings.
The painting at the centre
The central painting and the exhibition share the title Life in Progress. I made it during a numb period when I could register little beyond the physical sensations of my own body. I think of it as the storm before the process: a storm of feeling and life, held in numbness and close to breaking. Its colours are intense rather than muted or grey. Somehow, that made the painting feel more alive.
I paint my figures from the bones outward, adding layer by layer. In this painting, the body sits beneath a shifting field of cloud, colour and atmosphere. It became the point from which the other parts could move.
The surrounding paintings and studies move through bodies, hands, faces, objects, interiors and fragments of visual memory. Some are quiet and observational. Others are direct, physical or difficult to place. Together they show a way of looking that is still changing.
When the painting reaches skin
At the centre of the exhibition was a live installation. I tattooed motifs from the paintings onto participants, bringing the marks into a temporary exchange. The tattoo was not an illustration added after the painting. It was another surface through which the same work could continue.
The symbols also appeared in paste-ups and wall marks. A star-like form, small abstract shapes and hand-drawn lettering connected canvas to skin, the room and the city-facing side of the work. Repetition made the exhibition active rather than sealed.
A room that remains in progress
The exhibition held finished paintings, studies, notes, process images, people arriving, people being tattooed and traces gathered around the work. Showing those states together mattered. The room could hold what was complete and how other people entered it.
Life in Progress is about perception and connection more than one personal narrative. It asks what happens when an image moves between canvas, skin and wall, and when the viewer becomes part of that movement. The archive keeps it as a possible first chapter in the wider practice. Whether it becomes the first named collection remains a studio decision.
Credits
- Original Sketchy Shona exhibition record based on supplied Life in Progress documentation and explanation text.