Totem II Painting

Aphra Shemza is a UK-based multimedia artist. She is the granddaughter of the well-known abstract painter Anwar Jalal Shemza. Inspired by her grandfather, her work explores Modernism, her Islamic cultural heritage, sustainable practice and creating art for all. As an artist and activist, she finds ambitious ways to fuse methodologies from the past with new innovations in technology to imagine what the role of art could be in the future. Shemza combines abstraction with traditional sculpting techniques and technology to create her work. As a sculptor her main medium is light, which she manipulates to create works that change over time. Handmade and bespoke interactive circuits are embedded within the pieces and this creates work which responds to the viewer or the space around it. Just as abstraction was said to be a ‘universal language for the masses’, Shemza has created a new visual language for a contemporary audience - one that explores the impact and legacy of technology on our world. Shemza works in series. Each series has a different thematic exploration and a different aesthetic quality. From migration to climate change, Shemza explores many themes and ideas within her work and advocates for a sustainable practice. She uses her art-making as a tool to explore key concepts which are central to her individual journey through life. Shemza has created both public and private commissions: Synphonica 2.0 for the Canary Wharf Group, Heart Beats of Cristal for Champagne Louis Roederer, Seconds Pass for Save the Children, GlaxoSmithKline and Anagram and Post-Truth and Beauty commissioned by Morley College. She exhibits regularly with recent highlights including V&A Digital Design Weekend, Winter Lights Festival, The Other Art Fair and Xi’an Maker Faire with the British Council. She has also participated in public speaking events, notably at Tate Britain, the British Library and The Courtauld Institute. In 2016 she contributed an article to Tate Etc magazine about the life and work of her grandfather and has received coverage in the Times, Telegraph, London Live, Timeout, GQ and FAD Magazine. In 2020 she was awarded a Project Grant by Arts Council England for shemza.digital. A collaboration with the artist Stuart Batchelor centered around the work of her grandfather Anwar Jalal Shemza. In 2019 she was awarded the Arts Council England’s Developing Your Creative Practice Grant for her project Solutions for a Sustainable Art Practice.