June Exhibition: Shana O’brien

Shana is a proud First Nations woman, dancer and visual artist who calls Darkinjung County home.

She is a graduate of NAISDA Dance College and dancer with Wagana Aboriginal Dancers and Jannawi Dance Clan. In 2021 she premiered her first dance work in development Waterholes at Yellamundie Festival, as a part of Sydney Festival, which was then presented at Live Dreams and the MCA.

An interest in mix-media works lead her commence a Bachelor of Visual Arts at Sydney College of the Arts, from which she recently graduated. Her graduating work Life/Death Web being selected for PICA’s Hatched exhibition. In 2023 she was the set designer for Bangarra Dance Theatre’s Dance Clan where she found a meeting place of her passions.

Her work is inspired by the land, the ways that we connect to the land and to each other. She likes to consider how the viewer's eyes will be taken on a journey when looking at the shapes, colours and patterns in her works, and sees this movement as a kind of dance she can evoke in others.