SHANEE ROE

Shanee Roe’s figures dance on the boundaries of aggression and affection, as the women in the paintings take the dominating role. Exploring the shifting dynamics in intimacy, Roe’s work navigates the fine lines between tenderness and violence.

Large disembodied male heads are grasped by figures that flip between carer and aggressor. Despite their enlarged scale, which would usually present them as domineering, they are helpless without their bodies. Roe acknowledges a long standing history of severed male heads in painting, that drives an immediate association with violence into the work. Yet, the heads invoke an oddly maternal instinct to support and comfort, exacerbated by their vulnerability and own inability to return the hold, nor take any role of providing satisfaction or protection. They’re presented as needy and helpless, capable of only receiving the affection they are given. This creates a similar reaction to ‘cute aggression’ experienced with babies or animals, a desire to pinch, bite or squeeze that's at odds with the need to nurture and protect. Their nature poses questions about how they came to be disembodied, literally or figuratively, are they complacent in this relationship, or is there an element of force from the secondary figure? Regardless, there's an undeniable compassion from the dominating figure that softens the edges of this forcefulness.

The paintings address some of the clumsiness in sexual situations and intimacy, strangely dysphoric moments where an action or hold shifts us from our bodies into ones that feel small or oversized. Nude, they’re often captured in the awkward stages of embrace, emphasised by their disproportionate scale to one another. Wavering between a deep longing and an intensity that becomes somewhat disturbing. There's an accessibility to the roughness of Roe’s paintings, the same grittiness that comes with real life desire, their tactility makes them touchable. The artist pushes us to delve into the paintings, prod at the bits where brutishness and tenderness clash and find compassion for the figures' awkward navigation of each other.

Shanee Roe b. New York, USA 1996, is a Berlin-based interdisciplinary artist. In 2023, she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna studying under Daniel Richter. Roe has also participated in prestigious artist residencies, including The Cabin in Los Angeles, which culminated in a solo presentation. Her work has been exhibited widely throughout Europe and North America, in major cities such as Berlin, Dallas, Leipzig, Los Angeles, Miami, Mexico City, New York, Tel Aviv, and Torino, among others.