Today we’d like to introduce you to Shana Kaplow
Hi Shana, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I’m a visual artist with a focus in painting. I also sometimes work with sculpture and video. I grew up around art museums, studios, and artists as my mother was also a visual artist. I always had my hands in some type of artistic endeavor, but it wasn’t until college that I decided to pursue it more seriously. I fell in love with printmaking while there, and still find that many of the underlying aspects of the printmaking process inform my work as a painter. After graduate school, I moved to the Twin Cities, and have been a painter and educator here for over 30 years.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Artists often struggle with getting enough time to work on our art while also balancing making a living and taking care of family or other responsibilities. I’m finally at a place in my life where that is less of an issue, but there were certainly times when it was difficult to make all the pieces fit. I sometimes look back and am in awe of how much I would squeeze into a day. Juggling so much can be very stressful.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Making art presents endless ways for me to explore and examine my relationship to the larger world. Whether I’m making images of a chair, the sun, or an oil spill, it is most satisfying when I can figure out how to couple compelling or perplexing questions with surprising visual language. The paint itself becomes a vehicle for different types of actions, movements, or structures. For example, physical qualities like dissolution or evaporation in my paintings seem to represent a precarious tipping point but might also suggest the potential for transformation, which is also a way to talk about loss and hope. I often use an improvisational process with materials and sometimes reference photographic images. These approaches allow me to tap into what happens in the space between the recognizable and the abstract.
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
As I get older, I realize that what I think young artists need more than advice is actual support, studio space, and opportunities to freely explore and develop their artistic questions. There is a lot of pressure to professionalize one’s practice quite early. It is important to develop an intrinsic sense of self-worth to withstand the ups and downs of a creative life. One of the most important things to do is to build a circle of trusted artist comrades who engage and push each other and cheer each other on.
Pricing:
- For pricing information, please inquire through the artist’s website.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.shanakaplow.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/s.kaplow/
