Shama Johns- Cooking with a side of negroni-45 x 60cm-Oil-on-canvas
The Art of PR returned to London’s Coningsby Gallery this month with renewed energy and a clear mission: to spotlight the rich creative practice flourishing within the UK public relations community. If you missed the gallery show, selected works remain on view through the Occhi Contemporary Art website until October 15th.
Among the standouts was Shama Johns. After shaping narratives at agencies including Havas and Kindred, and in-house at the dating app Inner Circle, Shama has recently stepped into life as a full-time artist. The pivot feels less like a departure and more like an evolution: her still life paintings extend her instinct for connection into a tactile, luminous language of paint.
Shama’s canvases celebrate food, community, and the joy of gathering. Drawn to colour and texture, she captures not just how a moment looks, but how it feels—the soft bloom on a ripe peach, the glassy gleam of a wine goblet, the quiet intimacy of a half-eaten meal. Her palette balances saturated warmth with reflective cools, inviting the eye to move between the crisp edge of citrus and the soft fall of linen. Brushwork carries the memory of touch: confident, rhythmic strokes that build form, punctuated by tender, slower passages that let light pool on the surface.
What resonates is the way these paintings register time. Highlights catch like laughter; shadows settle like conversation at the end of an evening. Each table becomes a stage for shared rituals—the passing of dishes, the pause of a story, the hush that follows a punchline. In Shama’s hands, the everyday is elevated without losing its ease. The work is, quite simply, a love letter to togetherness.
The Art of PR’s mission—revealing the creative depth within PR practitioners—finds a compelling advocate in Shama Johns. Her paintings communicate with generosity and clarity, translating the intangible: taste, warmth, presence. They remind us that the spaces where we come together are worth noticing, savouring, and celebrating.
Visit the Occhi Contemporary Art website to see a selection of works from some of the participating artists.
https://occhicontemporary.org/online-gallery/
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