Black Art in Holland Park
Black Blossoms and Kensington and Chelsea Art Week are excited to announce our partnership with Maximus and Landlord Haleem Kherallah. They have generously donated The Holland Park Mega Banner for the showcasing of artwork.
Maximus and Lord Haleem Kherallah aim to be contributors to the local urban landscape both during and after the renovation work on this historic building in Holland Park.
Painter Shannon Bono is the first artist to have artwork displayed on the Holland Park Mega Banner.
The artwork on view ‘Opposing Forces,’ 2021, comes from Bono’s ‘The Hands that Hold You’ series, a profoundly personal and spiritual place in Shannon Bono’s exploration of rooting herself within contemporary African art through futuristic fem-centred compositions. In her paternal Congolese heritage, Bono explores the black female as a central subject matter of her work, paying homage to the hierarchal cultural status of spiritual power and societal respect women are held to in the Congo alongside the sculptures. Enamoured by artefacts commonly experienced in museums and galleries in the western world, the artist intends to explore their functionality and the powers they hold beyond their western acclaimed pleasing aesthetic.
Shannon Bono Standing in front of her artwork ‘Opposing Forces’ 2021, on Holland Park Avenue.
Shannon Bono’s (b. 1995, London) paintings embody an afrofemcentrist consciousness, sharing muted narratives and projecting the black women’s lived experiences. She is invested in producing layered, figurative compositions embedded with symbols and scientific metaphors that centralise black womanhood as a source of knowledge and understanding. Enamoured by African spirituality, Christian iconography and renaissance art, she employs its purpose of cultural impact, liturgy and instruction for an improved society within her works. Shannon explores the internal and external body by merging the design of notable African fabrics with biological structures and chemical processes in living organisms for the backgrounds of her works and using the anatomy as a second canvas in the foreground. She views the body as a powerful signifier that provokes dialogue, playing with pose, gesture and the gaze to challenge reality.
In 2021, Bono presented her first solo exhibition t“The hands that hold you,” at the Anderson Contemporary, London. She was selected for the Bloomberg New Contemporaries award 2021 showing at Firstsite and The South London Gallery. Recent exhibitions include"The Red Room", presented by Berntson Bhattacharjee gallery at Cromwell Place, ”Love is the Devil: Studies after Francis Bacon”, presented at Marlborough Gallery (2022), “Bold Black British,” shown at Christie’s (2021), “Reclaiming Magic” Royal Academy Summer exhibition and 'WOP' Avant Arte x WOAW Gallery Hong Kong (2021-2022). Other notable exhibitions she has participated in include The Lee Alexander McQueen Sarabande Foundation, Workplace Gallery and the Copeland Gallery. Shannon has been featured in Dazed Magazine and online press by Elephant magazine, Wallpaper magazine, Bustle, i-D and Soho house.