Shelley Mansel’s All That

Mansel most likely wasn’t inspired by She’s All That, but she dis on work by project artist Christo, painter Edward Hopper and Edward Burtynsky
The warehouses and construction site weren’t the easiest of subjects for Mansel. She says she struggled with trying to nail the perspective given their strange structures. To help accentuate the three dimensional perspective of the paintings, Mansel would layer four or five coats of varnish to give the painting itself three dimensions.

Although Mansel does work thematically from one series to the next, there has been a natural progression from pastoral landscapes and rural aerial scenes to overpasses and construction pylons. The urban has been creeping in.

What has remained the same though has been Mansel’s interest in light. The rich contrast and emphasis on light is part of what makes her work seductive.

“Ultimately I want to find beauty in [what I paint] otherwise it just wouldn’t keep me interested… whether it’s a pastoral landscape, cityscape or the interior of a warehouse, the thing that attracts me to the image, that makes me want to paint it”

Urban Cathedrals will be on display from Fri September 12 – Fri October 3 at Halifax’s Gallery Page & Strange. Mansel also has a new book looking back at a decade of her career you can check out here.

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