Shannon McEvoy is an artist from Minnesota, USA who has been living in Chile for more than 10 years since first studying abroad in Viña del Mar in 2010. She speaks fluent Spanish and a little Portuguese. She loves traveling and learning about new cultures and languages.
Shannon’s work reflects her love of cross-cultural connections. In 2011, she organized her first community mural in Cold Spring Minnesota, as part of her Honors Undergraduate Thesis on Latino/Latin American Muralism and social change, completed in 2012. The mural was the first in the town, and it was a culturally-inclusive representation of the town’s history. As part of her thesis Shannon also interviewed Mono Gonzalez and Juan Chin-Chin Tralma, members of Chile’s famous Brigada Ramona Parra. Post graduation, In the summer of 2012, Shannon was one of the lead artists for a mural in the stairwell of South High in Minneapolis, in collaboration with Gustavo Lira and Greta McLain. The mural explored themes of diversity and inclusion.
Shannon has participated in multiple exhibitions and international mural events. Her first exhibition was the 2010 Foot in the Door 4 Exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, for which she contributed a booklet of sketches she had made for a self portrait in wire. Then, in 2012, for her senior thesis exhibition, she displayed an immersive sculptural Nest installation symbolizing a nurturing community. This led to a collaboration with the Minnesota Children’s Museum in 2013, where the Nest was reimagined as an interactive installation.
Then came a few years of mosaic murals in South America and Europe. Shannon was selected to participate in the First International Urban Mosaic Intervention in January 2014 in Puente Alto, Santiago, Chile, organized by mosaic artist Isidora Paz Lopez. After this, she was inspired to organized a large-scale community mosaic mural in Valparaíso, Chile, started in 2014 and finished in 2016. She also worked on additional murals in this period: In November 2014 she participated in a Biennial Mural event in Cali Colombia, and in 2015 she was one of the lead artists in a mosaic project decorating a pergola in a plaza in Valparaiso (artistic director Ximena Wiuckstern). In 2019 she was invited by Isidora Paz Lopez to contribute to Vogeltreppe project, a mosaic staircase in Pirmasens, Germany.
Most recently, in 2024, Shannon inaugurated a mural commissioned by the U.S. Embassy in Santiago, Chile. It celebrates the bicentennial of Chile-U.S. relations and calls on us to care for our national parks and our planet. Shannon was co-artistic director for this project alongside Chilean artist Sabrina Morgado.
In addition to her public artworks and murals, Shannon has also kept a private studio practice throughout the years, experimenting with a variety of media, especially paint, mosaic, fiber art, and ceramics. She has many ideas and loves to explore the new and novel.
Shannon’s artist statement:
In my art, I seek to express my own essence and create positive connections with others.
My studio practice is introspective, a way for me to process and express personal reflections, inner thoughts and emotions. I experiment with a variety of media, including paint, mosaic, ceramic sculpture, fiber art, and immersive installations.
For the community murals I have led, I engage with the local community to create a work that reflects their vision. I love to play with bright, cheerful colors.
In all of my works I aim to connect deeply with the viewer on a soul level, exploring universal themes like memory, identity, emotion, healing and transformation.
I believe that through authentic artistic expression we create space for greater joy. I'm here to create beautiful, meaningful art that brings peace and joy to both those who view my work and to those who participate in it.
