9 April — 11 June 2022

Filmed at Galeria Duarte Sequeira during her Residency, Shaina McCoy talks about her creative process, artistic influences and current exhibition ´Cadillac4´, in Portugal.

For Cadillac4, the artist shifts focus on different types of engagements between friends formed within family bonds and her family´s extended chosen family. In search of understanding how people are presented and present themselves, Shaina McCoy looks back to her protagonist’s past and coming of age by highlighting subtle moments of connection, familial intimacy, caring gestures, helping each other and youths bonding in both private and social settings.

With a signature style of thick, glossy and colourful brush strokes, the artist paints almost featureless faces and withholds the realistic aspect of these images by presenting just enough information in them. In McCoy’s portraits, her signature facelessness is not an erasure but an affirmation. Using the form of portraiture, she ascribes importance to them, granting them permission to take up space.

Interview by Despoina Tzanou

Video by Filipe Braga and Ricardo Raminhos

source