African Violet

African Violet, 2023
Acrylic on Canvas
20 x 20cm

Lauren Shantall 

Born in Durban, Lauren has lived in Cape Town since1995. She works full-time in communications and devotes time to painting whenever she can. Lauren works mainly in acrylics on canvas. Her paintings reveal an ongoing fascination for plants, trees and flowers.  She lives in Fish Hoek with her husband and their son, four dogs and a cat. 

Plant Babies - Artist statement 

‘In these images, plants blur and merge in abstracted versions of themselves. Colour is a device that denotes joy, and marks that (im)perceptible surge of love that occurs when the subtle connections between living things - between plant person and human person, between parent and plant baby, between growing person and plant teacher – are recognised and honoured.

Akin to the indoor plant movement prevalent in the 1970s, linked to the rise of Organicism as a lifestyle philosophy, today’s homes have brought even more plants indoors, in a more directed way, than ever. Social Media abounds with botanical styling, numerous pot plant #tags and masterclasses on how to style your plant babies for the urban jungles of now.

In this we can read so many things - reverence for nature, heightened awareness of greening and green issues, the place for plant therapy as an antidote to digital disconnection, and the need to express care and nurture growth and positivity. These paintings embrace all of this – from observing the macro trend to participating in it, and depicting a family of plant babies at home.’ – Lauren Shantall

Exhibitions 

Plant Babies. Solo Show. The Yard. February 2023

LUSH. Group Show. RK Contemporary. December 2022 - February 2023

Blue. Group Show. RK Contemporary. September 2022

Deep South Community Art Exhibition. Group Show. Scarborough Community Hall. December 2021

Familiar Strangers. Group Show. Vacant Museum. July 2021

Show Some HeART. Group Show. HeART Project. March 2021

Gathering. Group Show. Jaffer Modern. December 2020

Colectiva. Group Show. Galeria Azur Madrid. October 2020.

Relief. Group Show. Vacant Museum. September 2020.

Eat, Sleep, (I can’t) Breathe. Group Show. Vacant Museum. July 2020.

In A Frame. Group Show. Spin St Gallery. May 2019.

Plantasia. Solo Show. Station Rd, Observatory. 2004

Notable

Brick Lane Gallery (London) Open Call Finalist

Press

Saturday Star: https://www.iol.co.za/saturday-star/news/look-plant-babies-an-artistic-ode-in-celebration-of-the-role-plants-play-in-human-existence-f3e85b8e-909c-478f-b315-191b33d4c6c7

What’s on in Cape Town: https://whatsonincapetown.com/event/plant-babies/

Garden and Home: https://www.gardenandhome.co.za/whats-new/the-private-life-of-plants-explored-in-painting/

Woman and Home: https://www.womanandhomemagazine.co.za/art/the-life-of-plants-explored-through-art-with-lauren-shantall/

Now in SA: https://nowinsa.co.za/2023/editors-picks/new-art-exhibition-revisits-human-plant-evolutionary-relational-traits/