About — Shannon Carroll

Background

Raised in Vermont, Michigan, and Maryland, I fell in love with the outdoors and the expressive power of art from a young age. From being entranced by the immersive nature of snow falling while skiing to stopping to watch the light dapple through the water while swimming, I have been drawn to the sensory nature of existence and the patterns and meanings we create.

Graphite Drawing, 2001, age 13

Photography, 2003, age 15

Photography, 2005, age 17

Acrylic painting, 2007, age 19

Oil painting, 2007, age 19

Review, 2010, age 22

Shannon Carroll Artist SXSW

Presenting about directing virtual reality projects at SXSW, 2017

While growing up, my primary artistic influence was music. Rock music constantly played in the background, and the soaring guitars and often intimate vocals provided a template for raw and cathartic self-expression.

The daughter of an outdoorsman and a journalist, there were always several newspapers on the kitchen table as source material. As a teenager, I developed a love for darkroom photography and cinematography and regularly saw contemporary art at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in DC. Coming of age during the seemingly limitless expansion of the internet and new technologies, I learned how to create digitally but always kept in mind to return to the sensory experience. This is where I find myself now: grounded in the emotive and sensory, responding to the source material and the most consequential issue of our time, the climate crisis.