Benjamin Shine with one his portraits and the tulle fabric he works with. He is accompanied by the host Mrs Goli Amir-Ebrahimi in her villa in Roquebrune Cap Martin

British artist and designer Benjamin Shine exhibited some of his gauzy tulle fabric portraits at the villa of Monaco resident Mrs Goli Amir-Ebrahimi during a Cocktail for art lovers.

A portrait of Obama

By carefully folding and creasing the fine and extremely lightweight material typically used in a ballerina’s dress, the artist creates the lights, shadows and tones to draw the lines of his portraits producing amazing effects, always using only one uncut piece of tulle for each piece. In talking about his latest work Shine confessed, “I just grabbed the bit of black tulle I had and just went for it…” Previous projects included an image of Barack Obama woven from an American flag, inspired during the US President’s re-election campaign in 2008. Shine’s highly creative works of arts have attracted a diverse clientele, including Givenchy who asked him to turn his tulle pieces into clothes; or Barclays Wealth who commissioned a portrait of Prince Albert constructed from recycled plastic bottles and bags donated by school children, for their building in Monaco; plus others like Deutsche Bank, Coca-Cola and Google.

A portrait of Baroness Thatcher, The Iron Lady

The young artist has received an accolade of prizes including the Red Dot Design Award, The Enterprising Young Brit Award and the Courvoisier Future 500 Art & Design Award to name a few. He gained added international attention when one of his works – a bright red egg-shaped post box – was stolen in London during the Faberge Egg Hunt benefit event, and was later found outside a department store.  The highly creative Benjamin Shine cannot be defined by his latest works but by what he will be doing next.

Shine’s “Slow Motion” exhibition will be open to the public from September 12th to 27th at Monaco Modern Art, Le Formentor, 27 Avenue Princesse Grace, Monaco info@monacomodernart.mc

Photos by: Celina Lafuente de Lavotha