Fall Exhibition: Shawne Major

Shawne Major: Force Majeure and other compulsions

This fall, AMSET will exhibit the works of artists Shawne Major. Shawne Major (b. 1968) is an American mixed media artist, who creates two-dimensional hangings and three-dimensional sculptures. Through her mixed media collages, she explores our perceptions of reality and how they are influenced by dreams, memory, superstition, religious bias, prejudice and fear. These influences overlay an individual’s belief systems to create personal paradigms. Major uses a variety of materials, a combination of kitsch, ersatz, craft materials, junk and personal objects, to subvert the hierarchy of high art. These objects of popular culture are transformed through collage and intense manual labor into elite fine-art objects. This exhibition will include collages and drawings.

Shawne Major received her BFA in Painting from the University of Southwestern Louisiana (Lafayette, LA) in 1991 and her MFA in Sculpture from the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers, University (New Brunswick, NJ) in 1995. Her awards include a Joan Mitchell Center Artist in Residency (2016, New Orleans, LA), a Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Residency Fellowship (2015, Captiva Island, FL) and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Artist Grant (2008). Her work is collected by the Francis Greenburger Collection (New York, NY), the Ogden Museum of Southern Art (New Orleans, LA), the US Art in Embassies (Los Angeles, CA), the New Orleans Museum of Art (New Orleans, LA) and the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, D.C.)