Please join us in the Fowler Center Grand Hall for a talk from artist Shelby Shadwell.

Born and raised in Springfield, Missouri, Shelby Shadwell holds a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis and an MFA from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Shadwell is currently a Professor of Drawing at the University of Wyoming. A two-time recipient of the Visual Arts Fellowship from the Wyoming Arts Council, he actively exhibits across the nation.

“My work consists of large-scale charcoal and pastel drawings of non-traditional imagery such as gut piles left over from big game hunts, space blankets used in emergency situations to stay warm, and pieces of black anthracite coal.

I maintain a fascination with apophenia, the ability for the human mind to identify patterns in ostensibly random information, visual or otherwise...the representation of abstract folds and contours in the material can evoke pareidolia, or the perception of recognizable form in a random conglomeration or patternicity of things. I maintain an interest in the implications of how the human mind, as a kind of inference engine, seeks to find patterns where they may or may not exist and how that can lead to the proliferation of things like conspiracy theories.”

– Shelby Shadwell

http://sshadw.otherpeoplespixels.com/home.html