What is my work about?
My work addresses limitations, labor, and societal expectations with a combination of sincerity and humor. Though these themes are universal, the work is rooted in my personal experience having a disability – coping with pain, facing personal limits, and working towards self-improvement. In raising these issues, I want to acknowledge both their reality and absurdity. My drawings and installations offer an entry point for viewers to make connections between their own struggles and the struggles of others.
Artist Statement
Universal themes of value, effort, and failure run throughout my work. In several concurrent series, I create art that reflects the uncertainty I feel in many aspects of life. By pairing contradictory sentences like “I should be working more/I should be working less,” or “I want to be loved/I want to be independent,” I attempt to untie the knots in my thinking. Although they are at odds, I feel strongly that both sentences are true, and I try to capture that ambiguity in the work.
I am particularly interested in anxiety around time management and the value of labor. In my ongoing series of abstract and text-based 8-Hour Drawings, I spend a standard American work day repeating a simple mark. I feel a strong sense of accomplishment when I complete each drawing, yet the product of my effort is a small, redundant group of marks. These drawings embody the conflicted feelings I have towards both my artistic work and my day jobs.
For my 2014 exhibition I SHOULD / I CANʼT, I gathered sentences that start with “I canʼt” from participants through an online form and took ownership of them by pairing each with its corresponding “I should.” These sentences, drawn directly onto the glass walls of the exhibition space, encouraged audiences to connect their internal doubts and conflicting impulses with the experiences of others.
My work comes from my personal experience, particularly my experience of living with a disability. However, all people have experiences facing their limits and making difficult decisions about what they can or should do. I aim to both acknowledge how painful those experiences can be, and allow us to laugh at our struggles as a way of releasing some of that pain.
CV
EXHIBITIONS
2014
SHOULD / CAN’T (Solo exhibition), The Invisible Dog, Brooklyn, NY
The Art Button Show, Gallery Arts Guild, Millerton, NY
2013
DUEL (Solo exhibition), OUTLET Fine Art, Brooklyn, NY
Homeward Found, The Wassaic Project, Wassaic, NY
Pleasure Victim (Two-person exhibition), Rabbithole, Brooklyn, NY
Sukkah Salon, 88 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY
INK + IMAGE, OUTLET Fine Art in collaboration with The Center For Fiction, Brooklyn, NY
2012
She’s Crafty (in collaboration with Breanne Trammell), The New Museum Store, New York, NY
Peaces on Earth, Sardine, Brooklyn, NY
The Printed Page, The Weitz Center, Carleton College, Northfield, MN
Keep in Touch, Sunset Surf Club, Brooklyn, NY
Everything is Index, The Invisible Dog, Brooklyn, NY
Groundline, Grit N’ Glory, New York, NY
Recession Art at CULTUREfix Storefront, New York, NY
2011
Wunderkammer, Carleton College, Northfield, MN
2010
Place Portfolio Exchange, Mid America Print Conference, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
International Mail Art Exhibition, Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA
Printmakers and Prodigy, University of Texas of the Permian Basin, Odessa, TX
AWARDS / RESIDENCIES / SPEAKING
2014
Studio visit/Guest speaker, University of Massachusetts Amherst Professional Outreach Program
Co-presenter, “The Shift,” Open Engagement, Queens Museum, Queens, NY
2013 Guest Juror, Summer Exhibition, The Wassaic Project, Wassaic, NY
Selected artist, Short list curated by Christina Vassallo, BRIC Artist Registry, Brooklyn, NY
2012
Studio visit/Guest speaker, University of Massachusetts Amherst Professional Outreach Program
Resident, The Wassaic Project, Wassaic, NY
Selected artist, Artist Welcoming Committee, New York, NY
Selected artist, Short list curated by Kris Nuzzi, BRIC Artist Registry, Brooklyn, NY
2011
Recipient, The Sigrid and Erling Larsen Award in the Creative and Performing Arts
2010
Recipient, Carleton Toni Award in the Arts
Recipient, Ursula Hemingway Memorial Award for excellence in studio art
PRESS / PUBLICATIONS
2014
Art Practical, 4/3/14, On Laboring for Love
DailyServing.com, 4/18/14, On Laboring for Love (Re-published from Art Practical)
Landfill Quarterly, Issue 4, The Shift
One Place One Art, 6/1/14, Interview with Shannon Finnegan
8-Hour Drawing, editioned by Kayrock Screenprinting for No. Editions
Day Job, curated by Taryn Cowart and Corbin LaMont
2013
Hyperallergic.com, 8/6/13, Art Revitalizes an Old Mill: Photographs from the Wassaic Project
Chronogram, 8/1/13, Plum-Colored Drawstring Pants Wearers Need Not Attend
Bloomberg.com, 9/26/13, Vixens for $190,000, Phallic Owl, Dazzling Grid: Hot Art
The Literarian, Issue 12, published by The Center for Fiction
EDUCATION
2011
BA Studio Art, Carleton College, Northfield, MN
Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, with Distinction in Studio Art