Shannon Heylin

NOW PLAYING

“NOW PLAYING”

Acrylic paint, wood panels, nails, metal fasteners, canvas, and stretcher bars.

27′ x 8′

2021

Welcome to my home and the movie in my head. Enter. Stroll through the grass fields, watch the moonlight dance on the water, hear the laughter at the lake, walk on the cold asphalt, feel the heat of the fire, and the deafening quiet after a car crash.

Take a seat with the characters and watch the scene unfold as they gaze right back at you. Allow your own feelings and experiences to come to the surface as you experience the serenity of the waterfall and the trauma of the forest fire. 

Listen to the quiet chatter before the movie starts and the hush that falls when the opening scene begins.

We are all voyeurs of this movie. 

This is my love letter to Painting. She has the ability to allow me to express my own feelings and traumas so that I can process them. Painting allows intense vulnerability and human connection so that we can all heal. I can connect with people through that vulnerability.

Hear my love of melancholy and quiet disaster. See yourself crouching to witness the small details and step back to take in the entire scene.

We are voyeurs of each other’s lives and our own. Who are you watching, and who is watching you?

“And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
-Friedrick Nietzsche