The Eyes Have It

SHANI RHYS JAMES MBE is one of the UK’s most respected living painters. On the eve of her latest London exhibition, JENNY WHITE visited her studio

The beautiful, winding drive to Shani Rhys James’ house in deepest mid-Wales tells you a lot about how she has chosen to live and work as an artist. Here’s a painter who has been hailed as one of the greatest talents of her generation – a Jerwood Prize winner who was made an MBE for services to art. She is admired in the UK and internationally – and she has achieved this from what might be considered a backwater.

“I lived in London from the age of nine but I’m not part of that cool art scene, which is why I love creating my own language here,” she says. “It’s not that I don’t have a sense of humour, but I’m not prepared to do the irony and emotional disengagement that have become quite trendy.”

She admits it can be hard to get the eyes of London to turn her way. “The Welsh arts scene is lively and terrific, and I just battle on despite the prejudices. I’m not tough but luckily I am a bit perverse and bloody-minded.” 

Her career got off to a slow beginning. “I went to Central Saint Martin’s, an abstract art school, so I could create my own way of seeing figuratively, and I did loosen up. I had a studio at Butler’s Wharf and showed in things such as the Whitechapel Open and at the Royal Academy of Arts. Then I had the kids and was teaching one-and-a-half days a week in Holborn, so it was only after we came to Wales when I was 34 that I started having time – and my career picked up.”

Regarding the respect and recognition she has since achieved, she is likeably grounded. “You want to be in the establishment but also, being here, you don’t think about it. You just do your work.”