Rose Shakinovsky | Encrypted

Goodman Gallery is pleased to present two solo exhibitions by Rose Shakinovsky (b.1953) and Claire Gavronsky (b.1957) in its London location. Originally from Johannesburg, the couple have been based in Italy since 1985. Employing very diverse techniques and visual languages, both artists explore collective responses to current crisis and trauma. Shakinovsky and Gavronsky have collaborated as the artist “rosenclaire” since 1986. rosenclaire run a renowned artist residency programme in Tuscany where they have been mentors to the same group of 85 international artists from 13 countries, for over 30 years.

The references are daily digital news images ranging from the insurrection that took hold in Haiti in 2023, resulting in an escalation of violence and displacement of citizens, to the current Washington protests of February 2025. Many works focus on global climate disasters such as Hurricane Beryl in Grenada in 2024 and the heavy rainfalls that caused landslides in the Southern region of Ethiopia that same year. Shakinovsky subjects these images to digital manipulation, using basic computer filters, until unexpected abstract forms emerge to replace but not alter the underlying composition or the existing colour placement of the original. At times, it may be hours or weeks before the “right” image to translate into paint reveals itself through this filtering process. The source material is therefore generated from political/social-media images rather than through self-expression or formal abstraction. She refers to this as a process that reveals “parallel realities” that maintain the essence of the tragic source material, while creating an entirely new visual language that escapes traditional abstract painting categories. Ironically, it is a form of photorealism, although Shakinovsky sees the process as more aligned to the devotional monastic discipline of reproducing manuscripts or Zen practice.

Shakinovsky says, “The chosen image is also therefore a collaboration with the computer, as my role is only one of recognition and choice, rather than creation. I choose an image at the instant when the chance overlaid filter-effect unintentionally escapes the generic graphic computer language and subverts it into analogue, with subtle painterly qualities, into a strange, indecipherable visual poetry. Conceptually, it’s important then to flip the process and render these digitally produced abstract chance effects into time-based hand-crafted oil painting.”

In ‘Saint Cecilia’, Shakinovsky references Quattrocento depictions of the music patron saint’s martyrdom. Even as she suffers torture in boiling oil, Cecilia continued singing, a singular symbol of physical and emotional suffering that resonates with the effects of various forms of contemporary violence, persecution and cruelty. The paintings, however, are not tortured but calm and beautiful, creating a space for contemplation and listening.