Shannon G.

September: Finding Light
Credit: Shannon G.Artist Bio

Shannon comes from a fine art background, as a multi-media artist and educator. As an emergent art therapist, she works from a somatic, person-centered orientation to serve diverse populations across the lifespan, who experience the full range of location, identity and orientation, ability and health. Her work seeks to explore the “experience of being” and relies heavily on nature as metaphor and process to as a primary guiding praxis to construct narrative.

Artist Statement

This body of work represents the process of “becoming.” Becoming an art therapist, yes, and also the becoming of the new version of myself. In a capstone address during my first year, Mary Andrus spoke about the program being a transformative one. A rigorous journey of coming undone and rebuilding ourselves as art therapists. At the time, that felt like a big ask, and now I see that it was absolutely accurate, and it is a process that repeats itself. With each cycle, I feel tempered - more more solid in my journey and more ready to hold spaces for the journeys of others.

As for this work, each month, beginning in September, a new work was started, exploring the here and now with all of the tensions present. Layers of work are present, although maybe hidden. Each layer was allowed to change, to be or integrate into the final layer. Integration is the goal, making choices to take an active role in the journey and to sit with the experience of “being” and of “becoming” at any given time, trusting the process to move toward growth. These paintings are not passive; they mirror the experience of time that they represent.