A moment crystallized
NOW Young Artist 2019: Sara Shakeel
The objects and moments of everyday life sparkle through the eyes of Pakistani visual artist Sara Shakeel.
Recently she’s made a transition from digital collages, recognisable for their signature play with light refracting crystal and glitter effects, to creating 3D installations using real crystals.
Her first UK exhibition, ‘The Great Supper’ at NOW Gallery, Greenwich Peninsula, promises all you’d expect from an artist known for her meticulous craft and subversive wit. A dining table with chairs askew, set with food and candles feels almost abandoned mid meal and crystallized in time.
Shakeel's work is a welcome and quite joyful counterpoint to self conscious restraint and Scandinavian inspired good taste, motifs we've explored in our AW 2020/21 story Gorge. Exploring the inanimate elements of a family meal through this altered lens brings drama to the banal and ephemeral staples of domesticity.
‘The Great Supper’ is at NOW Gallery until 23 June.