About Paint and Words: Shóna Slemon & Shauna Jane Harris

Paint and Words brings together friends and fellow Irish artists Shóna Slemon and Shauna Jane Harris, whose painting practices explore storytelling, memory, ritual and the everyday. About About Paint and Words brings together friends and fellow Irish artists Shóna Slemon and Shauna Jane Harris, whose painting practices explore storytelling, memory, ritual and the everyday. Slemon draws on Catholic devotional imagery, Celtic paganism and contemporary ritual to examine the objects we turn to for comfort — the sacred, sentimental, pharmaceutical and absurd. Harris combines painting and text, drawing on Ireland’s storytelling traditions, personal objects and unreliable memories to explore identity, nostalgia and the ways we remember. Their work shares an instinct to find significance in the ordinary: a familiar object becomes a relic, a half-remembered story edges towards folklore, and a private ritual takes on an almost sacred quality. Developed alongside an ongoing exchange of stories, references and observations, their practices offer two distinct perspectives on how we construct meaning through the things we keep and the stories we tell. Opening: 21 October Join the artists for the exhibition opening. Visitors are welcome to stop by, enjoy a cocktail or stay for dinner, with an à la carte menu available. UNLOCK, Monkwood Way, Hackney Wick