Shardenia Felicia

It all started with Kechenen.
A fantasy world created by me and my sister.
A world where everything is possible.
We could imagine and create everything that we didn’t have in the real world.

We had a family that was ours.
A family that was not fostered or forced.
This world was super important to us.

This world even had a name: KECHENEN.
Kechenen was a well ellaborated paracosm.

When I was 16 years we decided to shut Kechenen down. After that, I drowned completely in art and the artists who had something to say about fantasy. Frida Kahlo and Salvador Dalí were first my inspirations and motivation. I could spend hours looking at their paintings and imagining their world as my reality. Because of this, I started my endeavour to recreate Kechenen in my paintings.

With time art became my new Kechenen unconsciously. Until I finished the academy I got more and more conscious about Kechenen and its roots in my artistic practice.

In 2020 I realised that I needed something to bring all my thoughts and my mediums together in one space. I decided to make my art monochromatic pink, when I found a 3 symbol toy at my daughter's kindergarten. A colour that at first I hated because it represented everything I hate about being a woman: softness, charism, care and obedience.

But I realised that I could do something else with this colour. I can rip it into pieces to bring new meanings for me and for my art. Pink for me is a new beginning and it's a safe place to understand and reevaluate everything I make. I also realised that I can still use all the basic significance of the colour for my artistic practice.

So, pink is art, pink is softness, pink is anger, pink is acceptance and pink is Kechenen.

Welcome…

Curriculum Vitae

Art for freedom in Pietermaai, NAAM Curaçao (National Archaeological Anthropological Memory Management), October 2013

Monument of Togetherness Tirzo Martha, Museum Beelden Aan Zee, November 2017

Sun kissed/ Fog off, Quartair, March 2021

In pending waters, Billy town, May 2021

Open studios Borgerstraat In and Out, Borgerstraat, July 2021

A scenic route to self, Nest, March 2022

Welcome, Theater aan het Spui, January 2023 - March 2023

Oma (circles), kunstinstituut Melly, December 2023 - May 2023

Happening, ANOTHER WORLD, July 2024