Shard

Shard by British painter Bay Backner is a unique oil on canvas piece. Examining the cultural representation of women. Shard beautifully displays the artist’s female forms. Which are masterful self-portraits, embodying societal, political and personal realities. Her compositions play with contrast, ambiguity and equilibrium; hyper-feminine imagery dances with androgyny, stitchcraft with optical science, fluorescent pigments with heritage oil paints, and linear geometries with nebula abstraction.

Bay Backner says about Shard and her other works:

“I search for a visual language to express the truths of female identity. I am as equally influenced by Rembrandt and Goya, as I am nail art, ecclesiastical embroidery and piped icing.”

About Bay Backner

Backner is one of the first generation of artists to work without the constraints of a culturally male art establishment. For the first time, her paintings can openly express femininity without the need to conform, suppress or react and Shard does just this. She finds her techniques in a history of female expression outside of the gallery walls; seeing her canvases as fabric to be cut, sewn and dyed, and her oil paints as veils to conceal or reveal the figures within.

Backner gained a degree in Physics from Oxford University, whilst at the same time studying life-drawing at The Ruskin School of Art and theatre design. She exhibits regularly in her hometown of Valencia and as part of Runway Gallery’s London Fashion Week exhibition. Where two of her paintings were exhibited (Shard and Delta). Bay is the current artist in residence at The British School of Valencia, and is certified by the Smithsonian Institute in Teaching Critical Thinking through Art. She is founder of women’s arts collective Colonia Roma.