Shannon Smith

Shannon Smith is a painter born in Wurzburg, Germany who has lived in New Mexico most of her life. She is working to complete a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the University of New Mexico. She creates detailed works mixing fiction and reality based on urban legend and the paranormal.

Her work is largely created in watercolor, gouache and colored pencil. She uses layers to give depth to the forests and abandoned buildings portrayed in her paintings to emulate fears and feelings on the unknown. Her inspirations come from stories found during late night deep-dives on the internet, fiction, and the urban ruins of her surroundings while growing up. She also creates costume based art through cosplay and photography, exploring anime shows such as My Hero Academia, and stories such as The Adventure Zone,  beloved to her on the less serious side. Through her work, she seeks a place to explore and visualize her own ideas of these stories by making videos as different characters. She also seeks to express her own hardships with mental health and growing up through relation to these characters and entities, by acting and by referencing childhood memories of road trips across the United States with her family.