Serrano Gallery presents

SHANTI CONLAN: WORLDS REAL AND IMAGINED

CURATOR: BOGDAN MIHAI

Silver Street Studios, West Gallery

October 1st - 29, 2024

Reception with the artists:

October 19, 5:00 – 8:00 pm

Explore the boundaries between reality and imagination in her latest exhibition, Worlds Real and Imagined. Through her intricate printmaking and drawing techniques, Conlan crafts a visual narrative that transcends the ordinary, blending familiar landscapes with the fantastical. Each piece in this collection serves as a portal into a unique world, challenging viewers to reconsider their perceptions of the real and the imagined. This exhibition showcases Conlan’s most recent works, pushing the limits of her craft and offering a fresh perspective on the interplay between the tangible and the ethereal.

ARTIST STATEMENT

I've been making things my entire life. The need to create and construct has driven me since I could first hold a pencil or a hammer. Art has saved me, frustrated me, broken my heart and glued it back together again.

I was born in Micronesia, where I spent an entire 10 days complete with double rainbows, near-miss hurricanes, the constant sound of waves and people who named me for their own. My childhood in Ann Arbor, Michigan instilled in me a love of nature and a need to be outdoors as much as possible. I've lived in several cities across the U.S. in the time since, attending Houston's HSPVA (and thus not just surviving High School but even, occasionally, relishing it) and earning my BFA at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

After many relocations over the intervening years, I returned to Houston, drawn by my family and the incredibly diverse and empowering art community, and have built my home and studio here.

I make marks on paper to create a record of places, events and experiences. It is a means to comprehend chaos and seemingly random occurrences. Exploring and attempting to visually interpret the phenomena of the world around me allows me to understand both my insignificance and my intrinsic place in the universe. All the intangibles that create me: my memories, experiences and emotions, are products of tangible or measurable phenomena. The actions of the natural world inform our experience and place within it. Physical phenomena: sound, motion, light, and energy are what shape us. This is what I attempt to visually interpret, from the layering of sediment and the formation of terrain through the action of wind and water, to the movement and interaction of celestial bodies.

I've created a detailed description of the printmaking techniques I use, which you can freely download.

DOWNLOAD

Worlds Real and Imagined Gallery