Painting the Fallacy of Memory: Artist Spotlight on Shannon Richardson

Shannon Richardson contemporary figurative oil painting

The Flower Girl

With a colorful cast of characters and a vivid palette, Shannon Richardson channels her life’s experiences and intertwines layers of fantasy, turning experience into private fairy tales. This talented local artist explores the balance of memory and reality in her winsome paintings. Details are often fuzzy, and figures seem to move and blur as you watch them.

Based on memories that often take on mythical qualities, Shannon’s distinctive oils are both joyful and unsettling. She creates an arresting dissonance with her subject matter. What appears peaceful and serene at first glance can take on a separate personality at second or third look, much like memory itself. Ultimately, every composition is a visual story that reveals life’s beauty and rich complexity.

Narratives accompany each canvas to aid in the storytelling process. At once dreamlike, thoughtful and sometimes humorous, Shannon’s creativity knows no bounds! Consider her poem to accompany One Little Bird Would Not Be Missed (pictured left):

Shannon Richardson contemporary figurative oil painting

One Little Bird Would Not Be Missed – SOLD

There was a flock,
A count of three,
I took one bird
and began to flee.
I left two
 and more to come,
I took one bird
but left you some.
You won’t see
how could you?
There was three
now there is two.
But I know
you now watch me
for I might take
or I might flee. 

Shannon holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting from Pacific Northwest College of Arts. She also participated in a year-long painting intensive study program in Rome, Italy during her tenure in the Pacific Northwest. In addition, she has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions and is collected throughout the United States, Italy and Germany.

Click this link to see more of Shannon’s work on our website!