One-million clicks and counting for Canberra artist Benjamin Shine

So when he posted a 20-second reel of himself working on a recent piece on his Instagram page, he was shocked to see the numbers of shares and views in the hundreds of thousands the following day.

Just a few days later, the video has had 1.1 million views and counting.

The work in question, Dreamer Flow No.4, is part of his famous Flow series of faces sculpted out of single pieces of tulle.

"They're manipulated like transparent origami to form these meditative faces, which each have eyes closed to reference the idea of finding clarity out of chaos," he said.

In the video, Shine is using an iron to keep the vivid purple folds into place as a serene face emerges.

It's now now framed and on display at Grainger Gallery on Dairy Road, a relatively small gallery with a growing customer base around Australia and overseas.

The 2m by 1.2m work is retailing for $60,000, which is standard for an artist whose clients have included John Galliano and Givenchy.

The UK-born artist has had large-scale installations on display at the Canberra Centre, and Bergdorf Goodman in New York City, and has created commissioned portraits for dozens of private collectors over the past decade.

But it's the small series on display at Grainger that currently holds the world's attention.

Shine said he couldn't be happier for the gallery.

Gallery owner Kacy Grainger was out of the country at the time, but Shine said it was important to him a local gallery was getting attention from his work.

"I was happy for the gallery to get some recognition, because they do sell work overseas, they sell work to America a fair bit," he said.

"That's an aspect they want to build upon, and so this has had a million views, with their name in the title."

He said the gallery had only contacted him recently after another artist pulled out of an exhibition, and he was happy to oblige with some works.

He said he had rarely tried to promote his own work beyond Instagram, and that those interested in collaborating with him usually came to him.

Shine, 46, trained in fashion design at Saint Martin's College in London, and later moved to Canberra with his now wife, Danielle, when she got a job in the public service.

He had already veered away from fashion and into industrial design when the 2008 global financial crisis hit, and he decided to focus on art instead.

He began innovating with tulle and posting images on his website, and it was the legendary Paris fashion house Givenchy that gave his career the biggest boost when they approached him in 2012.

"They said, 'The only reason we contacted you is we couldn't figure out how you did it'," he said.

"They tried to do it, tried to rip me off - a lot of the fashion houses do try and use 'inspiration' from other artists."

Givenchy ultimately commissioned him to create four couture pieces for a 2013 show, thus launching his tulle series.

He also unveiled a new sculpture in February at Denman Prospect, a seven-metre-tall sculpture that reflects the changing colours of the pin oak tree.

The Snow family, who are developing the Denman Prospect estate, purchased the sculpture after Richard Snow saw the beginnings of it in Shine's studio.

He also made waves at his 2018 wedding; his wife-to-be was unimpressed when he suggested white ribbons to lead guests into the Sutton Forest where the couple were to be wed.

So he created a massive pair of faces sculpted in white ribbon - his and Danielle's - using hundreds of metres of white vermin mesh sourced from Bunnings.

"I didn't tell her about and it became a surprise for her," he says.