Untitled (Our Re-Shaping Series) by Natasha Evans

Untitled (Our Re-Shaping Series), 2020, Acrylic, Textile and graphite on Canvas, 146cm x 176cm.

About the work: Ideas relating to transitions of self, identity and change is a theme I’ve explored in previous collections such as my ‘Painted Faces Series’ and ‘Versions of Self Series’. The same narrative is present in most recent drawings and paintings that are part of a broader collection of works in progress titled ‘Our Re-shaping.’ These small works on paper have been inspired by the effects seen by the change in our social climate 2020 has seen with the extraordinary pandemic. In the paintings I express the idea that our social dynamics have been flawed and fixing them is integral to our re-shaping and new emerging identities. It’s as if we have experienced a disability and that our bodies and minds are in need of repair. Transitions and change of mindset are imperative to fixing our bodies, re-connecting and to putting the pieces back together again. It’s through profound experiences that we realize who we knew ourselves to be, has changed and so we undergo a re-shaping. Perhaps the distance between us needs to be closed and the lines of connectivity need to be re-drawn.

Natasha Evans was born in Zimbabwe in 1978 but raised from a young age in Zambia, Natasha moved to the England in her early twenties to study art on the South Coast. After completing her BA Hons Degree in Illustration, and having lived a total of nine years abroad, she returned to Zambia, where she lives with her husband and four children in Lusaka.  Natasha creates contemporary mixed media works as well as limited edition prints and functional art pieces in her purpose-built studio. In addition, she runs a small art-focused business, Studio78 which offers a fine art framing and printing service which followed from her desire to be part of the process of framing and printing of her own works. Over the last ten years, Natasha has exhibited in various group exhibitions and has had three solo exhibitions.