Shannon Alonzo is an interdisciplinary artist focusing primarily on drawing, soft sculpture and performance.
2023 Biennial Year Find out more
Her practice explores themes of collective belonging, place attachment, historical erasure and the significance of carnival ritual to the Caribbean consciousness.
She holds a BA from London College of Fashion and MRes Creative Practice from the University of Westminster. Most recently she has exhibited work at Documenta Fifteen in Germany, Ambika P3 and London Gallery West in the U.K, the Atlantic World Art Fair on Artsy and Alice Yard in Trinidad & Tobago.
Liverpool Biennial 2023
'Mangrove' (2023)
Referencing the entangled forms of Mangroves – a group or system of trees and roots which grow in coastal, tropical climates – Alonzo has created a site-specific mural of charcoal and paint which explores the Caribbean Carnival’s relationship to space: claimed and embodied, geographic and ideological.
Like the mangroves of Trinidad, an enmeshed root system living on the fringes of land and sea, the Carnival has historically provided a place of refuge and stabilization for countless marginalised peoples. Now taking place in various countries across the world, including places which were once foreign and hostile lands, Carnival celebrations exist to resist myriad forms of racial injustice and institutionalized oppression; a space for people of the Caribbean diaspora to assert their right
Referencing the entangled forms of Mangroves – a group or system of trees and roots which grow in coastal, tropical climates – Alonzo has created a site-specific mural of charcoal and paint which explores the Caribbean Carnival’s relationship to space: claimed and embodied, geographic and ideological. Like the mangroves of Trinidad, an enmeshed root system living on the fringes of land and sea, the Carnival has historically provided a place of refuge and stabilization for countless marginalised peoples. Now taking place in various countries across the world, including places which were once foreign and hostile lands, Carnival celebrations exist to resist myriad forms of racial injustice and institutionalized oppression; a space for people of the Caribbean diaspora to assert their right to joy, self-articulation, agency, dignity, and ancestral legacy. The motif of the Mangrove also pays homage to Frank Crichlow, a community activist and civil rights campaigner who became known as the ‘Godfather of Black Radicalism’ in London in 1960’s. Crichlow owned the infamous Mangrove Restaurant – a space of refuge for activists and creatives of the Windrush generation in Notting Hill, which also served as the informal head office for the Carnival. Central to the mural is Elma Francois, a little known but revolutionary figure who began her journey picking cotton alongside her mother at an early age. The poor treatment she witnessed sparked her interest in workers’ rights, leading her to become a leader in critical labour movements of the1930’s in Trinidad, which spread throughout the Caribbean. Here, she claims space in the Cotton Exchange Building, bringing a divine feminine energy to a formerly male environment, driven by capitalist ideology. Her presence, alongside Alonzo’s ritual of erasing and redrawing the mural part way through the exhibition, is an offering to catalyse healing and a restoration of balance. Figures within the mural blur in and out of focus, acting as a nod to rhythm and movement but also emphasising the fragility of histories which are passed on through oral or performance storytelling. In places, it is difficult to tell where the figures end and the Mangrove begins. Commissioned by Liverpool Biennial.
'Mangrove' (2023)
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Shannon Alonzo, Mangroves, 2023. Liverpool Biennial 2023 at Cotton Exchange. Courtesy of Liverpool Biennial. Photography by Mark McNulty.
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Shannon Alonzo, Mangroves, 2023. Liverpool Biennial 2023 at Cotton Exchange. Courtesy of Liverpool Biennial. Photography by Mark McNulty.
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Shannon Alonzo, Mangroves, 2023. Liverpool Biennial 2023 at Cotton Exchange. Courtesy of Liverpool Biennial. Photography by Mark McNulty.
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Shannon Alonzo, Mangroves, 2023. Liverpool Biennial 2023 at Cotton Exchange. Courtesy of Liverpool Biennial. Photography by Mark McNulty.
Liverpool Biennial 2023
'Lowest Hanging Fruit' and 'Washerwoman' (2018)
In her artistic practice, Alonzo aims to create a connection, or draw a thread, between past and present. She etches, stitches, draws and moulds as a way of making the rich but often forgotten or silenced archive of the Caribbean community more tangible. She attempts to counteract years of historical erasure, lost archives and remnants of colonial legacy which often obscures progress towards collective belonging and a deeper understanding of the self for Caribbean people. Through often labour-intensive ways of working, Alonzo comes to understand and celebrate the collective experience of the people of Trinidad and Tobago and pay homage to their ancestors who walked before.
Created in response to an article on the ‘postcolonial diet’ in the Caribbean, ‘Lowest Hanging
In her artistic practice, Alonzo aims to create a connection, or draw a thread, between past and present. She etches, stitches, draws and moulds as a way of making the rich but often forgotten or silenced archive of the Caribbean community more tangible. She attempts to counteract years of historical erasure, lost archives and remnants of colonial legacy which often obscures progress towards collective belonging and a deeper understanding of the self for Caribbean people. Through often labour-intensive ways of working, Alonzo comes to understand and celebrate the collective experience of the people of Trinidad and Tobago and pay homage to their ancestors who walked before. Created in response to an article on the ‘postcolonial diet’ in the Caribbean, ‘Lowest Hanging Fruit’ questions how our everyday choices are often informed by our history. The layers of the garment represent periods of time, with the subject seen lifting the upper layer – which represents the present – in order to reveal the past. Alonzo suggests the different moments in time are coexisting and eternally interconnected and asks us to consider the extent to which our choices are the result of social conditioning, rather than desire. ‘Washerwoman’ is inspired by an unnamed woman featured in a photograph taken by J.W. Cleary in Jamaica around 1890. It is the product of Alonzo’s attempt to get to know her ancestors through the work of her own hands, which silently move alongside theirs across time. She references and reinterprets the quiet strength found in labour traditionally associated with women and, in doing so, draws a parallel between the seemingly mundane actions or moments of our ancestors and our own reality.
'Lowest Hanging Fruit' and 'Washerwoman' (2018)
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Shannon Alonzo, ‘Washerwoman’, 2018. Liverpool Biennial 2023 at Tate Liverpool. Courtesy of Liverpool Biennial. Photography by Stuart Whipps
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Shannon Alonzo, ‘Lowest Hanging Fruit’ and ‘Washerwoman’, 2018. Liverpool Biennial 2023 at Tate Liverpool. Courtesy of Liverpool Biennial. Photography by Stuart Whipps
