What ideas are behind your works? Which themes do you focus on?
My works explore themes of intimacy, power dynamics, and human connections. I like using humor to expose a vulnerable, awkward, and desperate state of being, revealing loneliness in its most heart-touching, pathetic, and raw form. I try to portray these somewhat clumsy, playful physical attempts to connect. I aim to create confusion between the sense of a soft, compassionate embrace and a distant aversion, forming playful situations that are perverted in a sort of silly, naive way. It’s intimate, but it isn’t sexy or romantic, and it is not about love. It’s an essence that feels more real than that.
Your works often depict sexual and intimate relationships – how do your personal experiences influence these themes?
Personal experience can sometimes be a good ingredient to get the imagination running, but so can external observation and picking up on things around me. I would say my works come both from within me and through me. I am very attuned to a certain spectrum of emotions. It’s like being a sponge—absorbing what’s inside and around me, then letting it out on the canvas.
These sorts of characters and subjects have been appearing in my drawings since a very young age. I have all these weird, humorous, dirty comics I was drawing as early as the age of eight. The grotesque has always fascinated me. I grew up loving comics, especially the twisted, perverted works of Robert Crumb.
The way I see my paintings, it’s not just about sexuality. That is merely a tool I use to reveal certain tensions, dynamics, and vulnerabilities by presenting situations and interactions where this inner abyss can’t be hidden—an abyss I believe we all carry somewhere beneath our clothes and skin. That’s why I like these naked figures in their raw, primitive, unfiltered state.
Do you have a personal ritual?
Not really, I usually take the day as it goes.
How has your multicultural background and living in such diverse cities influenced your artistic work?
This strange feeling of arriving somewhere alone has become very familiar to me. I like it. It’s a sort of lonely, alienated feeling that intensifies my vulnerability and senses. It enhances my ability to absorb, like the sponge metaphor I used before. My intense painting routine often carries me into a painting tunnel. I can spend days and nights alone in my studio, inside my head. I then need these extreme changes of surroundings as opportunities to refresh my mind—let them force me to go out, take in, and get lost. To remember who I am and to forget who I am.
On a practical level, moving around has allowed me to learn so much—from seeing exhibitions, participating in different art scenes, meeting artists, and studying with various painters—all of which I deeply appreciate and which have influenced my practice. I also feel the strong impact of being in a place with certain cultural and painterly roots and history, something that deeply shook me when I moved to Europe.
Could you tell me more about the work „Salty Tears“?
In this painting, a man is standing above a woman, pouring his tears directly from his eyes into her mouth. It echoes the idea of liquid exchange in sexual situations but is demonstrated in a purely emotional way. The tears carry a multitude of emotions—a salty sorrow—and this act reflects the touching desire to have them shared, contained, and swallowed. I want to present it in a way that is also uncomfortable, intense, and awkward, leaving it unclear whether the act is sweet or humiliating, and whether these two figures are close or not. This motif of tears is something I enjoy playing with. They are both silly and sad and very revealing. Tears are, in many religions, the one bodily fluid considered pure. Yet, I think they also have a dirty quality to them—this salty water coming out of our eyes.
In October, you had a solo exhibition at the Luce Gallery in Turin, Italy. What is the meaning behind the title „Intimate Gaps“?
No matter how much we long for closeness and make all these physical attempts to connect, there is always this gap. The closer we try to get to one another, the more these gaps reveal themselves, painfully confronting us with a distance we cannot overcome. These gaps—these moments where we fail to connect—contain unfulfilled longing, regressive impulses, deepest fears, and desires. And that’s where the real, raw treasure of intimacy lies: in what’s missed.
In 2023, you spent two guest semesters at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in Daniel Richter’s class. What memories do you associate with your time in Vienna?
I learned a lot from Daniel Richter and enjoyed having him as a professor. I was very charmed by the city, and deeply fascinated by its museums, architecture, and art scene. Still, my time there didn’t go as smoothly as I had hoped. Although the city carries this gentle, romantic atmosphere, things turned out to be pretty rough and dramatic for me. I loved Vienna even before living there—I had visited the city many times to see friends and great exhibitions. I moved there with big expectations but realized it might not be my place.
It’s funny sometimes how unpredictable our connections to cities can be—for good and for bad. Still, I have many romantic memories of Vienna and believe we might get along better another time.
You’re currently living in Berlin – how do you spend your time there? Where do you like to hang out during the day, and where at night?
In my studio… my cozy, chaotic kingdom. The more I move around, the more I hold on strongly to my routine when given limited time. I recently returned to Berlin (from a residency in London) and have three months before I leave again (this time for a residency in Mexico City). My studio is within walking distance from my apartment, both in Neukölln, an area I love. I usually just hang out around here, even when going out at night. I try to balance my long studio sessions with sports. It’s nice, after or before a day of making up every move on the painting, to passively follow instructions and be in this physical place.
It’s a bit ironic, living in one of the most exciting cities with so much going on, but ending up mostly just alone in the studio, covered in paint. Still, Berlin’s energy and art scene keeps me inspired. I love how it’s full of extreme characters and wild encounters, always with many exhibitions to see.
What projects are you currently working on, and when is your next exhibition scheduled?
In the spring, I have a residency in Mexico City hosted by König Gallery, which ends with a solo show at their gallery there. Mexico City has always been a dream of mine; I even considered doing my studies there before choosing to go to Leipzig. So, I am extremely excited and curious to spend time there and discover the city. Soon after that, I will go back to Berlin and have a solo show with Gallery Kornfeld.
Shanee Roe – www.shaneeroe.com, www.instagram.com/shanee_roe/
