Shannon Freshwater

Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA

Artist statement

Shannon Freshwater (b. 1977) resides in Los Angeles, having spent her formative years in Las Vegas. The distinctive and exaggerated landscape of Vegas has left a lasting impact on her work as she focuses on the disruptions within conventional paradigms and explores the tension between objects, characters, spaces, and timelines that appear familiar yet are challenging to place within established historical contexts. Shannon considers herself a collage artist, using found material, texture, surface, sound, and video, often in combination. High and low, old and new, found and crafted equally intertwine. The function of repetition, obsessive attention to detail, rhythm, and pattern transforms anxieties and anger into a meditative act for Shannon but not necessarily for the viewer. Her work has been described as confrontational, unnerving, absurd and often psychologically dark. Her work has been exhibited at the Torrance Art Museum, Kleefeld Contemporary Art Museum, Durden and Ray, Johnathan LeVine Gallery, Cal State University Northridge Gallery, and Hey There Projects among others. She teaches at Cal State University Northridge, and Art Center College of Design and received her MFA from Cal State University Long Beach, and BFA from Art Center College of Design.

Artwork