Shanti Panchal: A Personal Language of Painting 2007-2018

Inspired by a visit to an optician's warehouse in Wembley, piled high with stock, the artist represents a tender portrait of an anonymous young worker weighed down by the stack of boxes she carries, suggesting the plight of thousands of individuals who work away from the public gaze, often for meagre wages after long shifts in difficult conditions. This subject is close to Panchal's heart; he was one of twelve poets and five artists commissioned by the Arts Council to contribute to 'I Have Found a Song', a collection of poems and images published to mark the Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act (2007), on the theme of enslavement.