Only Love Can Break Your Heart is a solo exhibition by Shaniqwa Jarvis at Public Gallery in London, opening 30 April 2026. The presentation brings together twelve works across silk, mirrored surfaces, aluminum, and collage. Jarvis works across photography and object-based formats, treating images as physical materials that can be altered and re-seen. Floral imagery appears throughout, alongside portraiture and abstract compositions that reference cycles of loss and renewal.
Silk works are suspended in front of mirrors, producing layered reflections that shift with viewer movement. Painted interventions and soft-focus imagery extend beyond fixed photographic frames, while collage pieces combine C-prints and aluminum within single compositions. The exhibition also includes a moving image work built from archival footage, recent video, and recorded audio. A second book titled GUTS accompanies the exhibition, published by Super Labo with an introduction by curator Essence Harden.
Mirror Silk Art Exhibitions
Only Love Can Break Your Heart Opens at Public Gallery London
Trend Themes
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Mirror-silk Hybrids — Suspended silk panels paired with mirrored surfaces generate dynamic, viewer-dependent compositions that reconfigure photographic storytelling into kinetic spatial experiences.
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Material Photography — Treating photographic imagery as tactile materials—through painting, collage, and aluminum supports—reframes image production as a multisensory object practice blending craft and archival processes.
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Multimedia Memory Assemblages — Combining archival footage, recent video, recorded audio, and print media constructs layered narrative devices that collapse chronological boundaries and foreground cyclical themes of loss and renewal.
Industry Implications
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Fine Art Galleries — Exhibition formats that emphasize suspended works and reflective installations create opportunities for venues to present mutable visitor-centric displays challenging conventional wall-based curation.
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Luxury Textile Manufacturing — High-quality silk manipulated for installation use suggests novel product lines where fabric is engineered for optical interaction and sculptural display rather than solely for apparel.
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Digital Media and Archival Publishing — Books and moving-image works that interweave archival and contemporary materials point toward hybrid publishing models that integrate physical objects with time-based digital narratives.