Sheena Rose
“I am interested in the daily lives of people, especially with what is going on in their minds…I want the viewers to have the feeling of being overwhelmed by the chaotic traffic, of people’s voices speaking over each other, and the over crowding of text and images that constantly shift around as the animation plays.”
Barbadian artist Sheena Rose has spent the last three months in a residency programme at the Greatmore Studios in Cape Town. A selection of Rose’s work, both from Barbados and work produced while in South Africa, will be presented at iArt Gallery in October 2010 as part of the MAD Art Moments exhibition.
Rose graduated with her Bachelors at Barbados Community College in 2008 and since then has been experimented with new media artist. Her work deals primarily with ordinary people and their everyday lives. As such, she highlights issues through animation. According to Rose, “The primary focus of my animation is something that I can arguably say everyone struggles with, and that is…constantly thinking about our daily problems.”
She believes that there are not many times during the day when people’s minds are at rest. “We are always dwelling on something that we need to do, a broken relationship—how we are going to manage paying the electricity bill as well as buying new school uniforms at the end of the month; not driving the car unnecessarily because gas costs more nowadays.”
Sheena Rose possesses a keen sensitivity to everyday occurrences. As a society, we can become so engulfed with the day-to-day chase that we sometimes easily forget that within each breath, hello, goodbye, or moment of stillness is an experience that can be only lived once. Rose beautifully recaptures these moments of truth in her animated projects.
WORK TO BE SHOWN AT iART GALLERY:
TOWN: AN ANIMATION SET IN ROSE’S HOME, BRIDGETOWN
WOODSTOCK: AN ANIMATION BASED ON TIME IN CAPE TOWN
DREAMS: A SERIES OF ANIMATIONS BASED ON EVERYDAY EXPERIENCES AND THEIR MANIFESTATION IN THE SUBCONSCIOUS
ORIGINAL MIXED MEDIA STILLS: USED TO CREATE THE ANIMATIONS
