Jean Shon stands in front of her Surel's Place installation. Photo by Gregg Mizuta.
Visual

Jean Shon

(Pennsylvania) Artist Website Artist-in-Residence September Residency Year: 2021

Biography

Artist-in-Residence Jean Shon focuses on new ways of projecting light and shadow through paper screens. The installations provide an immersive, intimate experience that reveals an endless amount of vantage points, facades, and secrets to be discovered. Her work exposes how our lives are interwoven within a complicated history, gravitating toward gaps, holes, and missing information. The connection between the viewer to the screens brings a closeness that creates an atmosphere of intimacy.

Shon is a multidisciplinary artist, working in photography, imagery, installation, and text. Her work explores concepts of memory, identity, il/legibility, loss, and trauma through family history and archives. She is interested in the intersections of the limitations of language and image creating a space of reflection and speculation. Her work is ultimately about experiencing the connection to the past in the present.

She received an MFA in Art from the University of California-Irvine in 2020 and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2006. Her work has been shown in various galleries throughout Southern California.

Shon created an installation that took inspiration from the nearby Boise River and books from Surel Mitchell’s collection, which all visiting artists have access to while they are here.

During her artist talk, Shon walked us through the progression of her practice: from documentary/street photography to more conceptual image-making. She explained how language has shaped her work and how she has arrived at her current work-installation using paper and light, both elements integral to the photographic practice.

INSTALLATION & ART TALK
SUSPENSION  :  CONNECTION
Thursday, September 16, 2021

Gallery

News and Articles

Former residents Jean Shon and Clare Johnson Named 2023 Residents at the James Castle House