MATERIAL VI 2019

Here we have Yinka Shonibare’s ‘Material VI’ and the thing that grabs me first is the pattern, how it whirls and loops, like a brushstroke. It feels so fluid, like the sculpture has been painted spontaneously, one mark after another. The material is so tactile, you can feel the folds and curves, the way the fabric bunches and stretches. There's a real push-pull happening – you can tell it's a three-dimensional object, but the print has a flatness that almost makes it look like a painting. If you follow the purple and white floral section down to the ground, it creates this real sense of movement – as if the whole form is spiralling upwards. This reminds me a bit of a Matisse cutout, that same sort of joyful energy and playfulness with form, but it also has a tension that feels very current. I think what Shonibare does so well is play with those ambiguities, between form and surface, history and the present. It's not just one thing, it's always multiple readings.