Shannon Peck

Biography
For as long as she can remember, Shannon has run around with sharp pointy implements in hand and crayons, pencils and shiny bits of ephemera shoved in every pocket. Looking to her daily life and surroundings for inspiration, Shannon works as a textile artist, printmaker, painter and gatherer of the odd and the eclectic.

Proud of her West Coast roots, Shannon Peck was raised as a logger's daughter in the remote outcroppings of Nitinat Camp and Kokish on Vancouver Island. She currently lives on a small farm in Chemainus, BC with a poetic baker, two illiterate labradors, a collection of senile cats, and a flock of belligerent chickens. It's on this smallholding that she and her husband also operate Well Bred, a micro-bakery selling slow bread and other delights at the local farmer's markets.

Statement
Art for me is often about paradox, where paradox is simply that which sets one on the edge of understanding. Think ‘word made flesh’. Think ‘God made man’. I love working with juxtaposition in art whether it be with words and textures, pain paired with humour, or pop culture colliding with religion. I love art that transforms sacred to secular and in the process creates awareness. I want my art to compel people to re-visit beliefs learned on the playground, at church, at home and in school. I want my art to have real consequences.

We, as a society, are so serious about life, always trying to set in stone our conception about who we are or what life should be like, when really we need to understand that there are a million different expressions that can transport us nearer to the glory and splendour we are seeking. That search for, and the understanding of self should not to be restricted or pressed into an unbending form. Life, much like art is an ever evolving and creative pursuit where you are forever scratching your head and saying, “Hey what am I learning today?” It doesn’t just begin and end with a single act of creation. It is a continuous and evolving cycle of questions and answers.