Valiantsina Sheliah

Lives and works in LaSalle, ON, Canada

Artist statement

I work across digital image composition, archival pigment print, and moving image to examine how images make authority persuasive. Drawing on optical pattern, surreal juxtaposition, and theatrical staging, I construct scenes in which elegance and apparent control coexist with unstable perspectives and impossible mechanisms. Repetition gives these worlds their order; visual contradictions unsettle it. My series The Race considers the competition for artificial intelligence as a contest over time, influence, and the right to shape the future. Clock-faced bicycles connect the pressure to advance with the passage of time. Immaculate clothing makes status visible, while patterned glasses complicate the relationship between seeing and being seen. Gatherings around a table bring the spectacle of competition into the quieter space of negotiation. I use shifts in scale to place commanding portraits beside smaller figures absorbed in effort. Their relationship remains uncertain: they might be competitors, spectators, or different versions of the same participant. The images draw on the visual appeal of fashion and advertising, making attraction part of the question of power. Who can afford to enter this race? Who determines its direction? What does winning promise, and to whom? Through these constructed worlds, I explore the tension between ambition and dependence, inviting viewers to examine both the appeal of authority and the conditions that sustain it.

Artwork