Today we’d like to introduce you to Shawn Cornell.
Hi Shawn, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for sharing your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers.
I always enjoyed creating things -my parents encouraged me and were good role models. After college, I spent 20 years as a graphic designer creating layouts and logos. Initially, it paid the soul and the bills, but I knew I needed to move on to something else when it started only to pay the bills. Giving myself and my employer a five-year notice, I worked towards a controlled leap into the world of fine art artists. That was over 15 tears ago, and the rewards have been amazing. Everything good in my life has come from or has been enriched by the arts.
Would it have been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has been a fairly smooth road. There certainly have been some potholes (such as self-doubts) and a few wrongs or missed turns, but I usually find myself back on course. They’ve all been experiences that I’ve learned and grown from.
Thanks for sharing that. So, you could tell us more about your work. next
I’m a plein air painter. My paintings are neither cutting edge nor deep in symbolic meaning; they’re simply stories about brief moments I experience and witness during my excursions. Hopefully, these stories connect with the viewer, sparking a fond memory, a sense of familiarity, or a bit of humor. Each painting is documented with its location, date, time of day, weather conditions, and brief observations about the day. Many have referred to this documentation as the painting’s birth certificate.
Oil is my medium, and I work with a very limited palette: Titanium White, Ultramarine Blue, Cadmium Red, and Cadmium Yellow. I prefer this palette; one in particular is to simplify my life by simplifying my choices of colors to mix. My work is characterized by strong brush strokes that are freely and rapidly applied to the canvas. I want the viewer to see the use of the medium, the thicks and thins of the brush strokes, the spontaneity, and the confidence. Specific passages will be left loose and undefined, allowing the viewer to interpret and finish the image.
Painting “en plein air” is more than just creating two-dimensional representations. It’s my wife’s companionship as she illuminates the canvas with a flashlight so I can paint the full moon. It’s my dad and I sharing a thermos of hot cheesy tomato soup while we paint a frozen, snow-covered stream. It’s spending time seeing the extraordinary in things many call ordinary. It’s a brief moment of life captured on canvas.
Years ago, while talking to an artist at the Salute to the Master’s Art Fair, I saw a striking mountain landscape among his vast displays. When I asked him where the scene was, he replied, “I don’t know. I copied it from some magazine.” Instantly, the image died. The painting became just a well-rendered copy of some unknown printed copy from some unremembered magazine; it possessed no connections, experiences, or life. That moment established a core conviction that my paintings would be witnesses and tributes to real experiences as they were happening. The paintings would be stories about brief moments in my life, told visually and narratively to whomever desired to look. Over the years, implementing this core conviction has supplied me with many frustrations, a multitude of close friends, and countless rewards.
Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
I’m awful, awful, terrible at planned networking. I know its importance, but I only sought people out by meeting them at an event or function. I’ve been lucky to meet great people. Also, I’m probably more of a “You won’t find something if you’re looking hard for it. It’s only when you stop looking that it finds you” kind of guy. My advice is to make yourself available and open to finding what you’re seeking when you least expect it. Join some groups, visit some galleries, and enter some shows- just being there and showing up will be an excellent catalyst for stimulating something wonderful and unexpected.
Contact Info:
- Website: mshawncornellstudio.com
