Shanaynay
Introduction
Ladies and Gentleman, this blog is all about Shanaynay, who? She's an astonishing artist that has left university, this blog has an exclusive interview with her and also we have some of her artwork and even photography! And, it's not ending there we will be giving our opinions, our views and our overall evaluation of the artist of who is Shanaynay? So,best start with the easiest place with the interview! Let's get to know Shanaynay!
Questions and Answers Session
Q1) Thank you Shanaynay for taking this time to answer these questions, how long have you been doing your own artwork?
You're very welcome, it's a pleasure! It's strange hearing people relate to my paintings as 'artwork', I feel like a proper artist! I guess I've been doing my own artwork for the past couple of years. I even have a ton of paintings that nobody has ever seen.
Q2) What inspired you to get into art?
I did art through school, but unfortunately got kicked off my course for having a heated argument with my art teacher. It wasn't my proudest moment. It was awful, really. It was mainly because we were constantly told what to paint. I didn't want to draw flowers, trees and landscapes. I wanted to put myself onto paper. Although, on the course I started to see the world a little differently. I wondered how I could articulate things on to paper, and turned down the road of photography. I decided to turn my negative emotions into any kind of art I could do well - as I am definitely not as talented or as confident as many other 'artists'. I really got my stride just over a year ago when I was diagnosed with manic depression. I was sick of losing friends over not being able to control my emotions, so when I had insomnia, I would spend my nights - and still do - staying up and painting my emotions onto paper. My paintings are often self portraits; the same as my photography. I guess that stems from having low self esteem. I went down a really bad road and tried to find ways to make myself feel better, and nothing worked. I would spend nights staring in the mirror, and instead of thinking about all the positive things I have achieved and how much my friends and family loved me, I picked out little unimportant things about myself. I hated my weight, my hair, my eyes, the way I talked, my eyebrows. Anything you could think of, I wanted to improve it, so I thought, 'hey, instead of looking at all the ugly things about yourself in the mirror, photograph the things that you like about yourself'. Some people might think it's vain, perhaps even stupid, but when I photographed my first self portraits, I felt good about myself. It was an awfully big deal for me. I was always a confident person, and because of bad things happening in my life, my manic depression really started to take toll and I stopped going out, I didn't want to see people, and even now, I still find myself lighting the room and photographing or painting myself at 5am after a night of restless sleep or over thinking the past. I'm very glad that I found that being artistic helps me. I have a background in performing arts, the most brutal and judgemental industry, and my artistic side came from that.
Q3) Who's your favourite artist?
I'm a little but of a geek at heart and although I rarely paint in his style, I am a fan of Roy Lichtenstein. His art reminds me of comics that I used to read growing up, and the use of bold colour really attracts me to his work. I have a lot of bold colours in my work reflected from his - especially hard black lines. I know the world is going crazy about feminism at the moment, but some of his work shows women as weak and I actually like it! The fact is that women are emotional, and I relate to some of his pieces. I really like his work.
Q4) Where do you get your ideas from?
I honestly don't know. I mentioned my performing arts background, and through that I was kind of trained to interpret things differently. For example, if I look at a person walking, I can look at the way their body moves, from their body as a whole to just their fingers. Then I wonder, 'what colour would represent the personification of that movement?' And it grows from there. In the same way that I think of choreography in my head to certain music, I can see what I want to paint on to paper, or what I want my photographs to look like. I can see the emotion of the moment in my head, and although when others look at the work I do, they might just see a photo or a (rather amateur) painting, I see everything I went through at that time. I think of rather keep it that way, too.
Q5) Do you challenge yourself when it comes to your artwork?
I think I do! The biggest challenge I've really given myself was painting portraits. I've never been particularly good at them. I'm used to drawing trees and trivial things, like objects in a room for example. I painted my first portraits of other people for my friend when I was in my mid teens, and they were quite awful. My portraits are mainly coloured in black, but these pieces were particularly awful. However, although I still keep my paintings quite dark, I try and include as much small detail as possible, and sometimes colour. If you asked my a couple of years ago to paint you somebody's face, I would have laughed in your face! But after practicing, and embracing the awful work I've done, I'm glad that I carried on painting because portraiture is the main thing that I do now.
Q6) How long would you say you spend crating your art pieces?
It really depends on what I do. What isn't noticeable in a lot of my work are the layers. I enjoy painting with acrylic, but my favourite thing to use is watercolour. I always put a base colour on the paper, and I cover the page in subtle colour - often to represent the emotion I'm feeling. People don't always know what I mean by that, but it's just simple symbolism such as blue meaning coldness, sadness, or red meaning love and anger. Then my painting goes over the top of that colour. I would say they take a couple of hours, and they never look perfect, but I don't want them to. I am not a polished person, and I don't want my paintings to be polished. I would rather my photographs be more aesthetically pleasing than my paintings, partly because they are actual representations of myself, rather than interpretations.
Q7) Is there anything art related or non- art related you want to accomplish in the near or far future?
I will always paint and do self portrait photography, because I have embraced them as a crutch for my manic depression, and they're effective in helping me, but my main aspiration is to go back to university and obtain my Philosophy and Religious Studies degree. I did two years at university on a Visual Theatre course and dropped out as it was just not my thing. I got to be artistic and use my ideas, but I was often scared to express what was going on in my head because I am actually quite a private person when it comes to my depression. This interview is probably the most I have ever spoken about it publicly. But university made me realise what I want to do in the future, and I have always been interested in the origins of the earth and people's different beliefs. I was brought up a Roman Catholic and believed in God until I was about 16 years old, but the older I got, the more I stopped believing and I would consider myself a firm believer in evolution rather than creationism. This spurred me to get into Philosophy, and I really cannot wait!
Q8) Who do you do your art work for?
I definitely do my artwork for myself. I sometimes share the pieces I like on social media, but I don't really care what people think about them. They all mean something different to me, the same as my photographs, and if people like them then it's a bonus, really!
Q9) Would you class yourself as an artist?
I guess I would. All of my life I considered performance as a kind of art, and I was particularly talented at it. Although I don't consider the things I paint and photograph as actual 'artwork', I have 'artist' in my bones. I have friends who do Fine Art, Games Design and Animation, and I would consider them all artists. Anybody creative should be considered an artist in my opinion.
Q10) Is there anything you want to say to inspiring artist or people that want to get into art?
I would say, just put yourself into your work. Don't worry too much about what people think because as long as you appreciate what you've created, not much else matters. I'd surely rather die having making myself happy with my work, than being a puppet to the people who tell you what to do. Nobody should tell you how, what or why to create. Whatever inspires you, just transpire that into something amazing.
Shanaynay's Artwork!
Introduction
Art Pieces
So, we have three pieces of art. Let's start with the top one, it's more pop, it's clearly Shanaynay maybe expressing herself with blending herself visually and physically into the art that we see as colour? The third one, I think it shows the more vulnerability of Shanaynay, the third being the on the right, you can see it's a sad charter but then the floods of colour in the hair is the way this character expresses herself. But, I want to get to the last image, as you can see of the three, this is the main one that isn't showing her face. Like the singer, Sia, I think, the reason behind this is that for art to truly be understood you need to see different angles. To me, this piece of not seeing her face speaks more to me than the other paintings. For example, see the hands on the head and the elbows arched, it's expresing the frustration or maybe anger of something, the fact that the painting only has a bra on, isn't something to just go "Oh, she's just wearing a bra". It could be showing so much more, you see the tattoos, I believe tattoos is a way of expression you're own story through tattoos and the fact it's not full of tattoos represent that it's a new life and that it's bare skin....think about that, bare skin, what do we think? We think of vulnerability, naked as it was, what you see is what we get. So, is that Shanaynay? What we see is what we get? We see her true self through paintings and expressive art forms? Well, let's go on and find out. 
Let's go to the next three pieces of art...similar but quite much more modern take on style I think of clothing. I think this would be the happy times of Shanaynay, as you can see in all three of them there's that element of comedy, fun, and off course laughter. Which, I think for artists to grasp in the truest form is quite hard, because you have to consider the ridiculous drawings that go all out on the laughs. But, these pieces have that element of pure texture and pure vision of how we actually laugh and have fun. I love the fact we still have that element of colour, but considering the dark and white backgrounds we are focusing on it shows that even laughter has the darkest times maybe? That's my own person opinion when observing colour, or the spectrum of light because black isn't a colour, well not technically anyway.
Now, the one on the left, I absolutely love, war paint, it's as if Shanaynay is fighting her own battles but is unsure of the outcome, or already known that since she is in a war, all she is seeing is colour, fun and the happy times in her life. Considering, the face is pure as white can portray the essence of the whole character of who is Shanaynay? We can say that she's plain as white or as boring as white. But, really look at the image, the only singularity of the white is her face? Maybe, she's screaming out "AM HERE! Let's ROCK!". The colours of war time is truly something to consider, she's like I don't care, am going to win. With the expression she's a girl full of colour and heart, but won't back down. Then, you have the more happier painting of herself and a friend in sun light, it's not dark, it's a simple cross of blue, which represents relaxing, happiness and hope. So, could portray the fact of pure friendship in it's simplest form. 
Final piece of art paintings from Shanaynay, I think this is really interesting because let's start with the female in the painting Shanaynay. We can see the paint work on her face isn't war paint but it's actually connected to Halloween of The Day of the Dead, and the fella on the right is off course The Riddler from Batman. So, let's just pause for a minute....Maybe....just maybe we see into someone's personality when we put on a costume or in this case a painting. We could say that Shanaynay likes to explore philosophy as we know from the questions and answers and she loves the concept of actual death. The fella, is either a fantastic DC Heroes fan, or actually likes puzzles, quizzes, and off course riddlers. Lots of things can be said by wearing a costume, but what if that costume is painted on a canvas? It speaks volumes of self exploration of human characteristics.
Photography
Introduction
You're probably thinking, why look at photography when we just looked at her artwork? As you will see shortly they are related. And, in fact we see Shanaynay at her best when we are looking at her photography work because it truly speaks what kind of artist Shanaynay could be or is. So, let's truly see in the world of Shanaynay.
Exposed, dark, frightening? Or, in fact finally seeing the light. Going back to the tattoos, we can see a few on Shanaynay, and I like the idea how many tattoos you have show your journey of humanity if you wear tattoos. But, looking at Shanaynay just at the face expression, we can clearly see someone either finally seeing something or someone you wouldn't think of. Or, the fact she's having all these different emotions that's she's going through and she's trying to connect to us. So, that being said, let's look at the colour of the photograph and what it really says. I think, considering it's dark that's Shanaynay but I know Shanaynay (well I think I do!) and she's a lovely person, so that being said when studying this photograph and the actual person of Shanaynay, I think this photography is showing the pure darkness of who is Shanaynay, and in fact what she sees in society. 
Bit blurry but it still speaks to us, that saying that a picture has a 1,000 words, this speaks huge portions of art to me. The simple gesture of a hand on the neck could represent pain, suffering, loneliness, the expression of self touch is the subconscious saying someone is here. But, we actually see a simple eye and a plain smile. The eyes are dark, mysterious and lonely, then comparing to that simple smile could be strict or in fact alien. We do not know what to make of this photography, but it says to us, am here, why aren't you here?
I love the fact the picture above is slightly blurry, it's showing helplessness of pure nature, the shadow effect is huge could represent the luggage of life on someones shoulders. The light glaring down onto Shanaynay could be the hope of anything really in the situation, religion, a lover, a family member, a simple friend. It could mean everything. The hands showing weakness, and the fact that it's closed softly showing giving up. And, the eye make up.....people might dismiss it but it's like a quick streak effect, to show torture, damage and even hopelessness.
What Does Shanaynay's Artwork And Herself As A Person Show?
Considering what we have seen, and what we know so far, I would say that she does art, her art work, photography for herself because emotionally it's like going to a therapist. Art is very expressive, and you can get those unfounded emotions out on a piece of art work, and the fact that Shanynay's artwork does have a story, and does have that pure emotion we can clearly see that Shanaynay will become a fantastic artist if not now, but soon. Her artwork, philosophy, religion, ideas are something to listen to and she's actually a really fun loving person. She can have mixture of emotions that we have seen through her artwork and hopefully one day we will see Shanaynay exhibition herself somewhere, because all her artwork has something that some artists miss. A part of themselves in there artwork and putting that emotion in there artwork.
So, What's The Bottom Line?
Who is Shanaynay? If I would have to put it in a paragraph it's impossible! She's one of a kind artist that you feel when looking into her artwork you have a presence of her inside the painting. She's hiding or fully exposed in the painting which is interesting as an art lover to look at. She's soon doing a YouTube channel which am excited to see because we can hear from the artist and her ideas and philosophies, let's hope it's not Pastafarian thou of a spaghetti monster in the sky! I think Shanaynay will portray something remarkable that the whole world will love and that's the bottom line.
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