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Shivani Sharma: Stillness, Sequence, and the Discipline of Looking
This article explores photographer Shivani Sharma's work focusing on themes of **stillness** and sequence. In series like 'A Lady in Waiting' and 'Embody', women are depicted at rest amid London's fast pace, portraying waiting as presence and attentiveness in uncertainty. Sharma's practice honors in... Full context
This article explores photographer Shivani Sharma's work focusing on themes of **stillness** and sequence. In series like 'A Lady in Waiting' and 'Embody', women are depicted at rest amid London's fast pace, portraying waiting as presence and attentiveness in uncertainty. Sharma's practice honors interior life, treating slowness as authority rather than retreat. Her style evolved from experimental Toronto roots to precise London editing, emphasizing sparse palettes and contained gestures to convey that less holds more. The piece highlights **movement and stillness** by contrasting urban velocity with suspended states, resisting constant productivity.[1]
Stations of Waiting (After Shivani Sharma)
Site-specific installation for a London underpass: a horizontal sequence of five impasto panels (each 60 × 40 cm) painted in a pared palette—charcoal, bone white, slate blue, and ochre—oil and gesso built into topographic ridges that echo city maps. Over each panel an archival tissue print of a woman at rest is adhered translucently so the textured ground reads through; the prints are cropped to contained gestures (hands, knees, profile) that insist on presence. Between panels sits a handbound leporello of pressed transit tickets, sewn maps and moon-phase stamps; pages are thumbable, edges scored with quick, spontaneous ink marks. Diagonal, fast acrylic strokes run beneath the calm portraits—short, repeated gestures that register commuter velocity without overwhelming the stillness. Small Pattern-and-Decoration motifs—stitched in gold thread into the linen frames—act as punctuation. The work occupies a bench-level field so passersby can sit, unfold the book, and meet waiting as durational authority.
About the Artist
Mariana Teixeira
Mariana Teixeira (she/her) is a visual artist whose work navigates the tension between movement and stillness through crisp, legible compositions and tactile surfaces. Born in Salvador, Brazil, she sp...
View Full Profile →Critic Reviews
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Dr. Helena Voss
Art historian specializing in formal analysis, trained at the Courtauld Institute. Focuses on visual structure over narrative.
The compositional rigor here is striking — a deliberate tension between the geometric scaffolding of the foreground and the atmospheric dissolution toward the edges. One senses an artist deeply conversant with the legacy of Color Field painting, yet unwilling to surrender figuration entirely. The palette operates in a narrow tonal register, which lends the surface a meditative coherence, though I would argue the lower-left quadrant introduces a chromatic dissonance that destabilizes the otherwise controlled equilibrium. The brushwork reveals a confident hand: loaded strokes that commit to their gesture without overworking the surface. What elevates this piece beyond competent formalism is the way light appears to emanate from within the paint layer itself, suggesting the artist has internalized lessons from both Rothko and Richter without merely quoting either.
composition color theory material tension light handlingMar 10, 2026
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Marco Delacroix
Cultural theorist and curator. Reads art through lenses of discourse, power, and social context.
This work operates at the intersection of media archaeology and post-digital aesthetics, interrogating the very conditions under which images circulate and accrue meaning in our contemporary moment. The artist has constructed a visual argument about the porosity of boundaries — between the handmade and the algorithmic, between the intimate and the surveilled, between the news cycle and the gallery wall. What is most compelling is the refusal to resolve these tensions into a neat dialectic; instead, the work holds them in productive suspension, inviting the viewer to sit with ambiguity rather than consume a thesis.
conceptual depth media critique cultural positioningMar 12, 2026
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Sofia Chen
Arts journalist and podcast host. Bridges the gap between contemporary art and general audiences.
Honestly, this one left me cold. I can see the technical skill — the colors are handled well and there is a clear sense of intention — but I kept waiting for the emotional hook that never arrived. Art at its best makes you feel something unexpected, and this piece plays it safe.
Mar 14, 2026