BOLDLY EXPLORING ABSTRACTIONS OF MULTI-TEXTURED SURFACES AND LAYERS,
Sharon Shepherd has developed an articulate painterly vocabulary that has evolved into a distinctive painting style. Shepherd was born in Salt Lake City and has resided in San Francisco since 1985. She has shown her work at SFMOMA Artists Gallery, 425 Market (San Francisco), Caffé Museo @ SFMOMA, Oakland Museum Collectors Gallery, Phillips Gallery (UT), Seattle Art Museum Gallery (WA), Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art (UT), Salt Lake Art Center (UT), Kimball Art Center (UT), Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UT), Pan Pacific International Fine Arts Exhibition (Japan), and American Conservatory Theater (CA), as well as numerous Bay Area galleries since 1979 including the Louis Allrich Gallery, Gallery at Kei Yamagami Architectural Design, and Jeremy Stone Gallery. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting (University of Utah) and a Master of Library Science degree specializing in Fine Arts. Reproductions of her paintings have been published internationally as posters and greeting cards.
Her work has also been featured in films and television, architecture and design catalogues, and as theatrical settings for ballet and modern dance companies. Shepherd’s work is included in over 350 public and private collections in the United States and abroad. In addition to her work as a studio artist, Shepherd has worked independently with a variety of San Francisco Bay Area-based arts organizations, antiquarian print dealers, framing studios, fashion and jewelry designers, and for nearly 25 years she was the assistant to the director of operations and facilities at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
“I am intrigued by the phenomenon of vanishing cultures, ancient architecture, marks of graffiti, light and space. I create pattern, linear designs, shapes and forms into my own visual language, which is intuitively based. I use what I refer to as ‘visual symbols’, sometimes literal, yet mystical. I often write on the surfaces of my work and, by layering the paint, I can disguise any imagery altogether. I make surfaces that resemble weathered walls, frescos, cracked plaster or cement, and the reaction of time on paint. I view my work with a continual sense of discovery and enjoy the complexities of interpreting that sense.”