When Gallery Stratford invited me to create an art box for their Shadowbox(ing) fundraiser exhibition this year, I decided to take inspiration from Joseph Cornell, acknowledged pioneer of assemblage art, by compiling sundry raw materials, both found and made, into a visually compelling composition within the confines of a small box. 

As I proceeded, the box became a playful memento mori juxtaposing a gilded lily oil painting against objects from my art studio: the obligatory skull, in this case from a red squirrel; a study of a desiccated bee; a tarnished silver spoon separated from its set; a key to long a forgotten lock; the dried flower husks of last year’s garden; clipped quotations from a favourite author. 

Even in this darkest and coldest time of year I perceive a slight lengthening of the days in my studio and know the cycle will begin again.

And so, perhaps this assemblage also contains the seed of a memento vivere.

Shadowbox(ing) is an exhibition and fundraiser featuring 30 local artists and over 20 Stratford businesses. The show opens Sunday February 9th, from 2-4 and runs to February 27th. The online auction begins February 9.

oil and graphite on gilded panel, plus assembled found objects © Shannon Reynolds 2025

The McMichael Volunteer Committee’s Autumn Art Sale Fundraiser returns—in person for the first time since 2019! I was one of ten artists invited back for, this, the show’s 30th anniversary year. I’m looking forward to returning to one of my favourite art galleries for this three day event. Held in the Grand Hall of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, the juried show features the work of 50 Canadian artists who will be in attendance all weekend. There is a gala on Friday night, November 29th, and the show continues during the day on Saturday and Sunday. For more information about the artists, hours, parking, and directions, please visit the McMichael website.

Two Swans and Buoy, oil on panel, 24” x 24” ©Shannon Reynolds 2024

Since 1976, the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum has organized Birds in Art annually, seeking to present the very best contemporary artistic interpretations of birds and related subject matter. Two- and three-dimensional artworks in all media other than crafts and photography are eligible. Artwork for the annual exhibition is selected each spring, and information is shared when finalized as the exhibition is prepared for the fall opening. Artwork from 107 artists from throughout the world is included in the 49th annual 2024 Birds in Art exhibition. This annual exhibition opens to the public on the first Saturday following Labor Day. The Birds in Art exhibition opening is part of Wausau’s Artrageous Weekend.

I am delighted to have my painting, Mallard Pair, included in this year’s exhibition.

Statement for Mallard Pair

This cropped portrait of a mallard pair centers the female duck whose gentle demeanor and understated plumage help her blend into the background.  The drake, even without his almost cartoonish iridescent green head, cadmium orange webbed feet, and bright yellow bill, is easily recognizable by his tightly curled black tail, like the well-oiled moustache of a dandy. I am primarily a portraitist, but have always been an enthusiastic and opportunistic birder. When portrait subjects are scarce, as they were during the pandemic, I turn to the surprisingly abundant wildlife in my urban neighborhood.  Each spring, without fail, a pair of mallards visit my backyard to dabble in the murky depths of my tiny goldfish pond and nibble at the birdseed under my feeder.  While the male keeps ostentatious guard, I find myself drawn to the subtle beauty of the hen as she goes about her business.

Shannon Reynolds

Mallard Pair, oil on panel, 14” x 14” © Shannon Reynolds

I will have a small group of new paintings of Flowers Fruit and Fauna debuting at Village Studios in Stratford on August 24th. In keeping with my growing sense that the tangibility of an art object is its crucial distinction in an increasingly digitized and replicable world, my recent paintings are even more textural. The surfaces and paint application are varied and the paint strokes range from thin washes to impasto. Sometimes even the imprimatura of an earlier painting is allowed to influence the new piece.

If you can make it to lovely Stratford, Ontario, I’ll be there in person at the opening Saturday afternoon and would be happy to talk about my work. Meanwhile, if any of the paintings on the website appeal, you can contact the gallery during this preview period for more information: Village Studios, 24 Downie Street, Stratford, Ontario (519) 271-7231

Life Lines is a wonderfully conceived, titled, and curated exhibition at Gallery Stratford commemorating 50 years of Open Studio, a drop-in three-hour weekly life drawing session that has managed to survive all the slings and arrows of fortune. The poster features the drawings of our former leader, marvelous draftsman and essayist Ken Nutt. I've learned so much and been introduced to many artists from the weekly newsletters Ken used to write to contextualize each upcoming drawing session. The exhibition was conceived and hung by our current ringmaster, noted Stratford illustrator, Scott McKowen. I'm happy to have some of my drawings—drawings never slated for exhibition—hanging alongside those of many of my fellow artists with whom I’ve drawn at Open Studio sessions over the years. And the tradition continues! The exhibition runs to June 9th at Gallery Stratford, with an artists' reception on the 2nd.

Model Carla in Duchess Headdress, vine charcoal on paper

The Kingston Prize, Canada's National Portrait Competition and Exhibition, has returned for 2023.  I'm honoured to have one of my portraits included in the exhibition of the thirty finalists from across the country.

Artist Statement:

This close-cropped portrait of my reluctant model, spouse, and pandemic inmate, is a depiction of a person present physically, but simultaneously distant.  As I was composing this painting, I was thinking of nineteenth century portraits of people reading.  The difference is that a phone, unlike a book, is a portal to the entire world and as much as it offers to its holder, it excludes from those nearby.  The pandemic has been the ultimate excuse for staying in our own little solitudes.  I wanted to deny the return of a gaze in this painting, not to enable a voyeuristic opportunity but to comment on how someone so near can be so far away.

The show runs from October 6th to the 27th with a reception and awards presentation on the 13th at the Firehall Theatre 185 South Street, Gananoque, Ontario.

https://Kingstonprize.ca

Near Yet Far (detail) finalist in the Kingston Prize 2023

Today I’ll be delivering a selection of my new paintings to Village Studios in Stratford, Ontario.

Now that they’re all framed and lined up in the studio, I feel ready to send them out into the world. More than ever, with speculations of the AI threat (or boon) to artists abounding, I think art should be experienced in person. There is a thingness to paintings that simply isn’t apparent in a digital image. Transparency and opacity of paint, the texture, the scale—all fail to translate with any accuracy to two dimensions. The balance to AI is definitely to be found in the tangible world.

I invite you to view these new paintings in real life from this weekend, September 16, until the end of the month in beautiful Stratford, Ontario. Maybe take in a live play at the Stratford Festival. In the meantime, if there is anything you see here on the website that piques your interest, please contact the gallery during this preview period for more information: Village Studios, 24 Downie Street Stratford, Ontario (519)271-7231

Waterlilies in Bloom, oil on panel, 18” x 24” framed in floating frame

From July 9th, 2022, a loose collection of my paintings from the past eight months will be on exhibit and available for sale at Village Studios in Stratford, Ontario.

If I’ve sometimes questioned why even attempt to paint, especially to paint beautiful things, while the world is calamitous (“am I fiddling while Rome burns?”), I remind myself that painting is both a defiant act of creation in the face of destruction and also a record keeping of these times, both the dark and light.  

The tone of these paintings tracks my changeable mood throughout the past year, sometimes yielding to a hard-to-shake sombreness, and sometimes brightly celebrating the short-lived beauties of the garden.

During the pandemic, my garden has been a respite and an ever-changing source of inspiration.  As a figurative painter and portraitist, I once had many opportunities for drawing and painting from live models, all within a short radius of my studio.  But with life drawing sessions cancelled and the opportunities for portrait sittings greatly reduced, my garden became my primary source of living subjects. This year, as seeds and tubers, bulbs and bare roots reached their promised, but still thrilling, potential, every new bloom was cause for minor celebration.  I’ve approached this loose collection of paintings of garden flowers as portraits.  The flowers are posed with objects from my home, objects that reappear, but with a fresh sensibility through juxtaposition with the blooms.  Flowers are so laden with associations from art, literature, history, and personal experience that each one seemed to impose an atmosphere of its own as I painted.  As in my portraits, I’ve tried to catch the unique character of each subject.  The collective noun I’m proposing for a group of flowers, and the title for this continuing series, is a respite: a respite of flowers.

My series of 17 still life paintings will be on exhibit and available for sale alongside some exquisite paintings by Stratford artists Eric Beddows and Mike Karn at Village Studios, 24 Downie St, Stratford, Ontario from September 25th, 2021.

Despite the pandemic, it was a good year for my paintings. Not only did one of my portraits travel to London for exhibition with the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, but my painting of city pigeons and a starling on light standard, ”Who invited him?”, won the urban wildlife category award in the David Shepherd Wildlife Artist of the Year Exhibition. Below is an excerpt from BBC Wildlife Magazine with the judges comments about my painting:

I couldn’t be more pleased that I’ve had my portrait, Boy with Ukulele, selected for exhibition with this year’s Royal Society of Portrait Painters’ Annual Exhibition at the Mall Galleries in London, UK. The society informs me that they received a record number of entries this year, so my inclusion feels all the more rewarding.

The Royal Society of Portrait Painters’ Annual Exhibition opens

6-15 May 2021

11am – 4pm

Mall Galleries, London

Boy with Ukulele, oil on panel, 16” x 20” © Shannon Reynolds 2020

Art$Pay Annual Juried Member Show goes live tomorrow at 6PM!

Friday November 13, at 6PM the Art$Pay website homepage becomes a virtual shopping catalogue of members’ original art, including an online silent auction and art picks from 31 well-known luminaries from the Kitchener Waterloo region.

 This year Art$Pay artists are teaming up with Farwell4Hire to raise money for Cystic Fibrosis. 

Part One On-line Juried Show & Sale at  https://artspay.org/ begins at 6 pm November 13 and runs until November 29.

Free art delivery in Waterloo Region!

I will have five paintings in this year’s show including one piece in the silent auction.

Farwell4Hire is a fundraising campaign created in memory of Luanne and Sheri Farwell, two young women who died of cystic fibrosis. Luanne and Sheri’s brother, Mike Farwell, hires himself for odd jobs in exchange for a donation to cystic fibrosis research. Since 2014, Waterloo Region has raised more than $600,000 through the Farwell4Hire campaign, and is recognized as one of the top fundraising communities in Canada.

 Art$Pay is a non-profit, artist-run regional visual arts organization of over 160 members, with a mission to connect visual art practitioners with opportunities, community, and advocate for fair pay.

Eclectic Inheritance: a treasury in still lifes

Too often the objects we inherit languish in dusty cupboards, in drawers or basements, forgotten and unappreciated.  After years spent renovating my Victorian house, I found myself unpacking my own inherited trove. These were items that had escaped Marie Kondo style sweeps--escaped because they were storied and often beautiful, because they were tokens of my history and sparked, if not precisely joy, then at least a strong urge to paint.  Many of these inherited objects seem out of step with today’s pared down aesthetic.  I believe our collective rush to simplify is a style preference of necessity, an admission that a flourish, a gilded edge, a fluted piece of moulding, a hand-painted surface is an extravagance we no longer afford ourselves.  But as a painter, it’s the extravagant and historical that so often draws my eye.  In these still life paintings, the idea of inheritance extends beyond my home to other things I value: the inherited plants in my garden, the heirloom produce at the market, the chrysanthemums grown by a dahlia society to preserve unusual cultivars, the fountains and flowers in public parks and gardens, the public gardens themselves.  These things are small tokens of a collective culture, of human endeavour, of civilization itself.  These paintings depict my own modest treasury, but I hope they will resonate with anyone who has ever been charmed by the gilded rim of porcelain tea cup or the curve of a table leg.

— Shannon Reynolds

The paintings in this series are available at Village Studios, 24 Downie St. Stratford Ontario from June 27th, 2020.