About Shannon’s Work

What I love to paint are life’s “glimmers.”

The fleeting and sometimes spontaneous moments in life where you feel peaceful, content, and happy with where you are. When I personally have these moments, I actually see the world differently.  Kind of like how when you practice gratitude, you start noticing all of the tiny blessings that your life has been showered with all along. But these moments I want to capture in my work are not usually intentional actions like practicing gratitude - rather, they are happened upon, like the way a butterfly may perch itself on your arm for a while, or a shooting star may pass your field of view in a silent blaze.

The “glimmers” that I paint come from my own life, my travels, a very long list of artists I love, and most of all, from my photographs.

The concept of photographing moments to freeze them in time may seem simple, but I believe the true value of it has become convoluted and lost among a generation of people that seem to value the photo more than the moment itself. We often take the present for granted and in its place, focus on the photo of the moment instead. But how can one draw upon the happiness they had in a moment of life where they felt truly present and free… when that moment doesn’t even exist yet? How can you possibly feel the joy that life wants to pump through your veins if you’ve already decided how fast your heart will beat? The photo ends up defeating the purpose of preserving the joy felt, replacing it with the compulsive urge to take out a phone or camera.

Therefore, in my practice, I strive to do the opposite: I draw from photos that inspire me to paint life’s moments. I paint my photos, which often include myself, so that I will never forget them. So much of our life is forgotten. I feel compelled, often by gratitude to God for the life that I’ve been given, to do everything I can to remember what I can, to fuel myself for the times when I will forget.

In this unstable world, I have come to understand how important it is to never, ever forget the way it felt when life invited me to sit in that glowy place where the sky and sea meet.

When we are surrounded by a glowing moment, or a “glimmer,” I think it is absolutely vital to stop for a minute and soak it all in.