Shannon Bono’s (b.1995, London) paintings embody an afrofemcentrist consciousness; she is invested in producing layered, figurative, compositions embedded with symbols and scientific metaphors that centralise black womanhood as a source of knowledge and understanding. Enamoured by African spiritually, Christian iconography, and renaissance art, she employs its purpose of cultural impact, liturgy, and instruction for an improved society within her works. 

Bono explores the internal body as well as the external, by merging the design of notable fabrics from Africa with biological structures, chemical processes, and more recently, the unseen world, displaying magic for the backgrounds of her works. Bono uses the anatomy as a second canvas in the foreground of her works, she views the body as a powerful signifier that provokes dialogue, playing with pose, gesture and the gaze to challenge reality. 

Bono received her MA in Art & Science from Central Saint Martins University, her Associate Fellowship in higher education from the University of the Arts, London, and her MFA from the Royal College of Art. In 2021, Bono presented her first solo exhibition at the Anderson Contemporary, London, UK. She has since shown her work in numerous group shows including: Stretching the light curated by Alayo Akinkugbe, Rele Gallery, London, UK (2024); Earth Monsters, Sarabande the Lee Alexander McQueen Foundation, London, UK (2024); Windbrush: Portraits of a Pioneering Generation, National Portrait Gallery, London, UK (2023); The Red Room, Cromwell Palace, Berntson Bhattacharjee Gallery, London, UK (2022); Love is the Devil: Studies After Francis Bacon, Marlborough Gallery, London, UK (2022); BOLD BLACK BRITISH curated by Aindrea Emelife, Christie’s, London, UK (2021). 

She was selected for the Sir Frank Bowling Painting scholarship (2023) and the Bloomberg New Contemporaries award (2021) showing at Firstsite and The South London Gallery.