Shirley Fintz was born in Harare, Zimbabwe . She is a versatile artist,
who boasts an ever evolving creative output. She completed her fine art
degree with majors in graphics and photography.
For a thesis on food, she photographed hundreds of branded supermarket products.She began a series of oversized replicas of food and consumer Products commenting on our brand obsessed culture. She is an avid collector of toys,art,jewellery ,vintage clothes and tribal craft and her displays seem to infuse her work with
An irreverent, tongue- in- cheek energy. Her fascination with south African cultural icons and her love of the child within have directed her work in a provocative and humorous direction. Her animal series include trophies, flying buck, stacked animals and giant animal toys decorated in delft,florals and graphic Shwe Shwe patterns.
At the time, she was also working in Barbara Jackson's pottery studio and she started to make replicas of food as it is served: old fashioned plates with sweets and cookies, a cup of cappuccino with biscotti. From there she progressed to making memorabilia toys such as Superman and the Muppets. But her real creativity found its focus when she started sculpting animals - animals on wheels, animals on top of each other and her latest buddha series.
Shirley has exhibited internationally many times, is an accomplished jeweler and is very proud to be one of the founders of Monkeybiz bead project.
1998 ceramic exhibition at Irma Stern/ curated exhibitions at own gallery Contemporary Collectable's/ ceramic exhibition in Germany at Gallery Annton
1999 curated another exhibition Art attack/ exhibited at many group shows/ Sofa chicago USA
2000 founded monkey biz bead project with barbara jackson/ exhibited at show in Denmark/ exhibited in Germany
2001-2005 exhibited in many group shows in cape town/ exhibited at gallery in London/ Director at Monkey biz/ exhibited at North meets South in paris (traveling exhibition)
exhibited at Anthropologie in newyork rockerfeller plaza
