| My work acts as a conduit to the unconscious. Parts of it are anatomical, botanical, animal, and mechanical. I rework the “guts” of my characters and provide an interplay of metaphors. Based on simple, intimate and immediate means, I attempt to interweave the internal and external, the physical and metaphysical, the individual and collective. Often eliminating background and focusing entirely on the finest details, my subjects have little or no context. They occupy no known territories, no living spaces. This grants me the ability to focus on the sublime and the visceral. My recent body of work focuses on the balances between fragility and strength, the mind and body disconnect, or more succinctly, our stuffing and its casing. |  |
Shannon Keller
My work acts as a conduit to the unconscious. Parts of it are anatomical, botanical, animal, and mechanical. I rework the “guts” of my characters and provide an interplay of metaphors.
Based on simple, intimate and immediate means, I attempt to interweave the internal and external, the physical and metaphysical, the individual and collective. Often eliminating background and focusing entirely on the finest details, my subjects have little or no context. They occupy no known territories, no living spaces. This grants me the ability to focus on the sublime and the visceral.
My recent body of work focuses on the balances between fragility and strength, the mind and body disconnect, or more succinctly, our stuffing and its casing. I use personal iconography to reinterpret the anatomy of my characters and trigger tension and vulnerability. I simultaneously cloak and reveal the body, playing with psychobiological imagery, the stained and subtle interplay between parts internal and external.
My installations are based on associations, word play, and reoccurring imagery. They consist of sketches, doodles, and mockups that are juxtaposed onto a wall and act as means of provoking dialogue in which the viewer is compelled to participate in its interpretation.
I am seduced by the primitivism and immediacy that pencil on paper provides. My aim for my drawings is to be beautifully incomplete, allowing access to enter and exit while maintaining an intimacy that is both delicate and intense.
I earned a BFA in Drawing from Pratt Institute and an MFA in New Genres from San Francisco Art Institute. I currently live and work in Los Angeles with my husband and two daughters, who provide endless inspiration.
