Spotlight: Shauna Cribbin, 'SUNKISSED IN THE CITY'

Tell us about the Tyre Series:

This series of works began in 2021, as I revisited earlier modes of making while seeking a process that was all-encompassing, labour-intensive, and intentional - one that approached the pixel as a physical object. At a time when I lacked space and workshop access, I found I could work within the headspace of print: using rhinestones like bitmap, with the physicality of sculpture and the context of collage.

The first rhinestoned tyre, 'SCREAM', was presented in my solo show alongside other text-based tyre works. I later exhibited three additional tyres at The Slade 150th Anniversary exhibition, suspended from chains and disco ball motors, spinning to a soundtrack of my nan reciting a text I had written. I put them to rest at that point, knowing I would return to the process when the time was right.

Last year, I picked up the stones again and began rhinestoning women whom I felt a connection to - sometimes through nostalgia or visual familiarity, sometimes through resonance with their backstories, and often through how they too worked in service of their desires.

More recently, I have been reflecting on the idea of the “one-hit wonder”: a single, fleeting moment of fame and fortune, a gleaming peak - and these works feel the same to me. They exist for a moment in my life, then life goes on, and I move on to the next. 

I want these sculptures to embody contradiction in their materiality - the slick against the rugged, the glamour found within the everyday. I have been having them photographed as if they have been ‘papped’, as though the expressions on their faces were caught in response to someone behind the lens. 

'SCREAM', 'DESERVES THE WORLD' and 'SUNKISSED IN THE CITY' now sit beside and atop one another like a totem pole, shifting in arrangement as if engaged in conversation. I would like to continue this series, scaling up to a tractor-sized work and revisiting the physical element of movement - turning or spinning within a space, whether on the wall, the floor, or suspended from the ceiling.

Tell us about your practice:

My work references and explores themes of escapism, power, fame, sexuality, beauty, the domestic and consumption. I aim to commemorate the everyday and all it embodies, driven by an innate desire to elevate and glamorise it to celebratory heights.

Through the use of juxtaposing materials and objects, I create a form of social critique, challenging how we assign particular objects roles, in much the same way women are often positioned within society. Photomontage and collage allow me to inherit the contradictions of a lived experience by drawing imagery from a multitude of sources to construct a visual dialogue that is as layered, seductive, and confrontational as life itself.

I am heavily influenced by the music videos I grew up on, which served as my first gateway to the otherworldly. In particular, Missy Elliott’s 'Beep Me 911' and 'Sock It 2 Me' remain touchstones, their impact resurfacing in different moments with renewed poignancy. My work seeks to blur lines between what is considered ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture through the use of imagery and material choices. Central to this is the pixel, utilising it as a physical object through scanned low-resolution imaging, screen printing, and rhinestoning like a bitmap.

Shauna Cribbin (b.1997) is a British Artist, currently residing in Bow, the East End of London - A 360 moment for the Artist and her Irish London Heritage. Cribbin grew up in North Bushey, just outside of Watford, as a result of her emigrated Irish family moving from London to run a post-war council estate pub in Watford. Like many working-class girls, her first creative outlet was dancing and listening to music, rather than visiting galleries. Though making art was ever-present from the get-go, with multiple moments of accidental poignancy later realised. Finding the world of art through school and visiting art institutions independently, Cribbin attended Central Saint Martins in 2015, completing a foundation diploma in Fine Art. It was here that Shauna gained a deeper understanding of the context of her dreams and desires. She began producing sculptural works from newly discovered materials, embracing collage as a medium and articulating a visual language uniquely her own. This led Shauna to study at the Slade School of Fine Art, including an Erasmus term at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2018, where she explored courses such as Extreme Furniture, Runway Accessories, and Printmaking. 

Two years later, Shauna graduated in 2020 with a BA and maquette of her final show, as a result of the world closing its doors to public engagements. Aware of the distance between collective experience and personal opportunity, Shauna soon sought her own path, securing a place on The Bomb Factory Art Foundation residency, where she began to shape her identity as an artist beyond Art School. It was at The Bomb Factory Archway where she went on to present her first solo exhibition, ‘LITTLE BIT OF SUGAR.’ Shortly after this moment, she encountered a wall, questioning her intentions toward art-making as the world grew overwhelming and all-encompassing, and the necessities and sobering realities of life took hold. Nevertheless, she pressed forward - participating in multiple group exhibitions, working for a jewellery brand, producing poster design work for a theatre and assisting on set work and the beading team for SS. Daley.

Shauna soon rediscovered her love and voice in art-making, leading to exhibitions with 3D Women and Plaster Magazine, as well as a shortlisting for the Women in Art Prize 2025. She is currently a studio holder at Bow Arts, where she is developing new large-scale works and pursuing future opportunities.