Shani Rhys James: Red Ground II, 2014

What Do Artists Do All Day?, the BBC Arts series on the working lives of artists, spent a day with Shani Rhys James as she worked on this new oil painting.
If I knew what I was going to do with a painting I wouldn't do it... it would be really boring
Rhys James is an Australian-born artist who moved to London with her family when she was nine. She studied Fine Art at Saint Martin's School of Art, London in the mid-1970s and settled in Wales in 1984.
The artist is a past winner of the Jerwood Painting Prize and the BBC Wales Visual Art Award.
Red Ground II is on display from 7 June to 7 September 2014 at the Dean Clough Gallery in Halifax, West Yorkshire as part of its Home exhibition.

Shani Rhys James on BBC Arts
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What Do Artists do All Day?
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