The ‘chair people’ have been an ever-present theme throughout Shenstone’s career: “The chair dwells in a historical world. Everyone who has sat in it has left some kind of memory in the chair. It lives through time and accommodates people who want to use it, and that ingratiates it to me.” Chair and person are intertwined as a single sinuous being, each with their own affable character and seemingly straddling the real and non-physical world. These works unfold with hits of drama, of humour, the macabre, of pain, and all sorts of fleshy humanness in between. We’re all in there somewhere.

The ‘chair people’ have been an ever-present theme throughout Shenstone’s career: “The chair dwells in a historical world. Everyone who has sat in it has left some kind of memory in the chair. It lives through time and accommodates people who want to use it, and that ingratiates it to me.” Chair and person are intertwined as a single sinuous being, each with their own affable character and seemingly straddling the real and non-physical world. These works unfold with hits of drama, of humour, the macabre, of pain, and all sorts of fleshy humanness in between. We’re all in there somewhere.

The ‘chair people’ have been an ever-present theme throughout Shenstone’s career: “The chair dwells in a historical world. Everyone who has sat in it has left some kind of memory in the chair. It lives through time and accommodates people who want to use it, and that ingratiates it to me.” Chair and person are intertwined as a single sinuous being, each with their own affable character and seemingly straddling the real and non-physical world. These works unfold with hits of drama, of humour, the macabre, of pain, and all sorts of fleshy humanness in between. We’re all in there somewhere.

Spend time with Shenstone and you realise that serendipitous moments can spark the grandest of perceptions. She is continually musing with the objects and materials and light that surround her… emphasising the lives they possess. Wire has been intricately modelled by Shenstone into a miniature torso and head in the spirit of one of her favourite artists, Giacometti; and as with the lives of all the objects that pass through Shenstone’s hands, it then shows itself in a new light. Material and scale and tones are transformed and the wire head becomes as venerated and characterful as any of Shenstone’s esteemed sitters.

The chair is the genesis of many of Shenstone’s narratives. It’s an object that so often serves a quiet but dependable supporting role to the human who sits in it – but Shenstone’s chairs always charmingly remind us that they were here before any of their sitters. They take on life, with chair and person often depicted by Shenstone as a single intertwined being. For an artist who is consumed by all the unseen inputs that create us, that makes total sense: aren’t chairs and bones wrought for the same simple purpose, to prop us up? And for all the realms that Shenstone’s chairs play host to, their serial reappearance becomes a poignant reminder of her celebrated lineage in portraiture.