Caitlyn Shea is no ordinary artist. She is a guide, taking you on an adventure through her art, driven by curiosity and discovery. She hopes to share her own experiences with you.
Shea is an artist that cannot be boxed into any genre. She admits that she has always loved abstract expressionism ever since her grandfather took her to a Jackson Pollock exhibition when she was a child and introduced her to the chaos and chance of Pollock’s work. She was inspired by ‘the man, the myth, the legend,’ a fellow resident of Long Island. She was particularly taken by Pollock’s large movements that required a viewer to stand back far away, to absorb the whole impact, but then being able to dive back into the minutiae to really understand the painting. As a child, she liked to draw small, her love of Pollock encouraged her to go large.
She chose to express herself with murals. East End Arts’ JumpstART program in Riverhead, New York, allowed her the first opportunity. It was hard work extracting the required permits, persuading the owner of the wall to allow her to paint it, renting scaffolding before she had even opened a tub of paint. She created The Garden Party, a bouquet of hummingbirds gathered around blooms of flowers. Interestingly, hummingbirds tend to be solitary and are very territorial. The only time hummingbirds gather together is when there is an abundance of food or during migration when although they travel alone they appear to be part of a group, because of the sheer numbers flying at once. Shea has captured this perfectly in the mural, giving each bird its own space amongst the dense flowers.
This attention to detail is fundamental to her art. Curiosity drives her to ask how wings work, how they connect to the body, what does the ribcage look like. She finds energy in discovery, that drives her urge to explore and learn. This translates well on her hummingbirds which appear to be flying as you look at the static painting.
You could easily see Shea’s work as pretty flowers and birds, but there is a grittier component to her work. Her portfolio includes scorpions, cicadas, bats, owls, crows, wolves and monsters such as Medusa and Quetzalcoatl amongst a broader array of subjects. Why paint them? She says “would you look closely at vultures, if I didn’t paint them?” These works are honest and unsentimental, but always dynamic in color. She fell in love with color earlier on and regardless of subject, her colors add vibrancy and life to her work.
She admits to allowing chaotic energy to drive her painting. Years of art schools and exploring painting on her own has brought her to a point where she has the technical skills allowing her to deconstruct ideas and images to create her own visions easily. She nurtures a vibrancy of discovery and excitement, allowing her subconscious to feed her with information. She often has a feeling of being lost and then found in her paintings. She may have an outline of a new painting in her mind, but she allows the paint and mixed media she uses to do what it wants to do.
She is not a full-time painter, a concept that can be derided by some, but she argues that it is important to have a life outside of being a painter, as it allows for different experiences and ideas and stops a revolving door of the same old paintings to come from her paintbrushes. She works as the Executive Director at the Walt Whitman Birthplace in Huntington, New York. Even with a full-time position, she paints enough that there is little room to put yet another canvas in her studio. She also likes to teach others the joy of painting in a relaxed atmosphere as well as painting live, so those unfamiliar with the artworld can see how her works develop.
As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the USA, she is focusing on painting the bald eagle, the symbol of America and part of the Great Seal of the United States. The bald eagle that is native only to America represents power, courage, freedom and long life. She feels recently that the bird has been usurped by factions that do not necessarily have the best interests of the nation at heart. Her father is a veteran who has served his country as a bomb disposal expert and continues to work in this field in his civilian life, so she therefore understands the cost and value of life and what it means to honor and represent this country. She is working on painting the eagle, reclaiming the bird in terms of what it represents and honoring her country.
Asked about why she paints, Shea explains that she feels a “compulsion to paint which borders on addiction.” However, she doesn’t paint solely for herself. She paints to provide a platform for others to look at art, to hopefully lose themselves in the imagery and then to find themselves. She wants her work to be a rewarding experience not just for herself, but those who look at her art. She hopes that her works are worthy of the time and patience for viewers to be present in the moment, allowing their subconscious to help interpret her work and find themselves in their own experiences. G&S
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