Shane Pennington

ARTIST BIO & STATEMENT

Shane Pennington is a Dallas based artist and co-founder of AURORA, a media arts festival in the U.S. His works challenge the balance and fragility of essential dichotomies between nature and human construct. Pennington’s subjects are often skewed both metaphorically and physically, prompting the viewer to contemplate interpersonal relationships to nature and a deeper meaning of life from an alternative perspective. His use of mixed media and textures, predominantly copper wire, allows for a diverse language of concept. The resultant works conjure an energy that reflects upon life, death, and universal consciousness.

Pennington is a recipient of the “New Dallas Nine” award from D Magazine and has exhibited internationally at the Paddington Contemporary Gallery in Sydney, Australia, and at Sur la Montagne, Berlin. He also counts many world-recognized institutions and corporations among his collectors, including Alana in Sydney, The Gaedeke Group, Caldwell Cassady & Curry, Autonomy, The Regis Corporation, Dallas City Hall, The Dallas City Performance Hall, TEDxSMU, and JP Morgan Chase, by whom he was commissioned to install his work in the lobby of their flagship tower in Dallas.

“Much of the subject matter in my work is influenced by nature and spirituality as I view them interrelated. I frequently pull inspiration from the hill country where the landscape is unforgiving at times and arid. In contrast within this struggle for resources, you also will see large healthy old oak trees. The current landscape provides a base within my work which mirrors my thoughts on the struggles of life and our purpose in life. I often reference a point of time in the future with the possibility that there is nothing left and work backward towards documenting what is in front of us.”

-Shane Pennington