Shayla Marshall

Contemporary Art Practice (MA)

10037789@network.rca.ac.uk

"Da Crib" Grad Show Installation 2024. This piece is representative of a subconscious realm that serves as an archive for black culture, memories, and contributions. The space highlights portraits, and the history of its access. Creating a set design that's interactive for the viewers to solidify the life of the space by taking their own portraits inside the installation.

"Soulaani (MUVA)" Furniture, Hair, and Tintype photography. This work is a collaboration with a design products student. Rewriting the history of colonization, and celebrating black culture.

"Portraits of a Noble Woman" Tintype Photography. Tintype is a 19th century method of photography. What that usually looked like for black bodies back then were either highlighting violence or assimilation, never a culturally accurate depiction. Using this method of photo taking, in this light, reclaims that history.

"Red, White and Blue (Truth about the richest dollar in the West)" Photography, Airbrush, Installation, Hair. RWB challenges the narratives placed on "Ghetto" culture in the U.S, and how it's deemed inappropriate, but also highly profitable. It makes viewers question the politics surrounding the theme.

About

Shayla Marshall is a contemporary artist currently based in London who creates mixed media artworks through world building techniques. Exploring themes that aim to rewrite histories and futures that have detrimentally been prewritten by others. Born and raised in Miami FL 1999, to an African American family, Marshall’s upbringing being raised in a culturally diverse city heavily influences her work. Living in predominantly black neighborhoods growing up, there was always a celebration to be who you are. It wasn’t until moving away from home at 18 to California, where she was met with adversity on what life was like being black outside of the safety of her birthplace.

This experience further prompted Marshall to question these ideas she started to discover about the complexity of the world around her. Now she is currently a full time artist undertaking a Contemporary Art Practice MA at the Royal College of Art. In her creative endeavors, Marshall likes to pull from different moments in time to reflect the spaces she builds. Storytelling is a major part of the framework that begins every piece. Inviting the viewers in to experience the rich flamboyance of these diverse stories.

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