Lot 10 , Siobhan Stanley, So Gaz'd On Now, 2014, oil on canvas, 52 x 68 cm.

Siobhan Stanley
So Gaz'd On Now, 2014
oil on canvas
52 x 68 cm.
£5,000-6,000
Before Dublin-born artist Siobhan Stanley studied painting, she was a soloist with Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet for 15 years prior to joining Rambert Ballet Company; she then spent eight years as an actor. So it was not surprising that, as a visual artist, she chose to position her contemporary themes and human subjects within the historical setting of Shakespeare’s world. However, instead of drawing directly on the plays, in the series Communion, Stanley has reimagined the lives of black merchants in Elizabethan society, a significant group but rarely painted at the time, to subvert formal representations of power and wealth.

Since 2011, Stanley has studied painting in Italy at the Florence Academy of Art and at the Cecil Studios, at the London Fine Art Studio and the London Atelier of Representational Art. She has exhibited work at Leighton House, London, and at BlackShed Gallery, East Sussex. After many years in London, she is now based in Hastings.