SHANNON RICHARDSON
A PARADE OF PARABLES
TELLURIDE ARTS HQ GALLERY | FEBRUARY 2020
Telluride Arts HQ Gallery in Telluride, Colorado will be featuring the work of Shannon Richardson for her solo exhibit, 'A Parade of Parables' through February 2020. The Art Walk reception will be held Thursday, February 6, 5-8 pm.
Shannon Richardson begins each day with a sense of excitement and wonder, never knowing what will be revealed in the many canvases she works on simultaneously. She paints daily in her light-filled studio loft above the Blue Sage Center for the Arts in downtown Paonia, CO. Working with flexibility and malleable quality of oil paints, she begins each artwork not knowing where the story will end up, allowing her to trust her medium and imagination more than her intentions. Each piece begins as an abstract work of art based on simple colors and mark making. This phase begins to inform the paintings, much like the Rorschach inkblot tests or the simple visions we see when looking at clouds, enabling Richardson to develop a dialog within the physical act of painting. A back and forth of ideas, questions and answers start to unfold a narrative organically, and the fable is realized. The honesty of living in a true moment reveals itself through this process. Richardson does not intend to render her own personal experiences through these pieces – she does not wish to share her secrets. However, she buries these truths below layers of paint, which creates a narrative between reality and fantasy. When these two perceptions intertwine, Richardson is able to separate herself from the memory and allow objective observation and imagination interplay to connect. The work transcends these boundaries and allows interpretative memory to reveal a sense of romance and reverie. “I am able to take the gravity of life and turn it into something tangible, and beautiful, but not quite real. The truth becomes the fable and what I find is not myself, but the remnants of dreaming.”
Richardson has been creating art her whole life, having grown up in a remote area of northern Washington, removed from the outside and often without electricity, she found art as a way to satisfy her infinite imagination and energy, and connect to the natural and ethereal environment she calls home. Fairy tales influenced her greatly at a young age, and this influence can still be seen today in Richardson’s narrative-driven personal fables. Richardson graduated with a BFA from the Pacific NW College of Art, and studied abroad in Rome, Italy for her junior year. She has been a full-time professional painter ever since. Her works are exhibited in homes and galleries throughout the nation and abroad while she maintains a humble life at home in her garden as a hobby farm girl and painter. Richardson lives the “simple life” of an urban farmer and artist in the small mountain community of Paonia, Colorado with her husband, 5 chickens, a pug named Yoda and a cat named Nom Nom, her days are spent in the studio painting and gardening.
The show runs through February 2020 at Telluride Arts HQ Gallery, located at 135 W Pacific in Telluride, Colorado. Open daily from 12-6pm or by appointment.
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