Shaan Bevan's materially-led works on paper often depict turbulent and textured natural scenes, partly as a means to mirror the internal states of the artists' body as she was undergoing treatment for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. For her degree show on Slade's MFA programme, Shaan made one seascape drawing for each level of the Beaufort scale, attempting to capture the power of the wind and equate that with a body in revolt. Since Shaan has been in remission, she has been reclaiming the chemicals used during her treatment, as well as many others, in various ways, staining the materials she works with, and imbuing abstracted depictions of the natural world with a sense self and personal story.
"Shaan Bevan began making large-scaled, detailed drawings of the sea when she was undergoing treatment for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, during which time she had so many chemicals in her body that her urine was considered a biohazard; a paradoxically healing toxicity. Initially, these drawings offered both an escape from and representation of her interior physical and psychological turmoil, suggesting a porous fluidity between inner and outer geographies."
[Excerpt from 'Meeting Points Within This Elemental Mesh', an essay by Anna Souter]