Shannon Eakins

Celebrate Life Cake!

2011-11-20T12:35:00.000-08:00

Pretty Birdie

2011-11-06T10:44:00.001-08:00

Canyon Landscape Study

2011-10-14T16:32:00.001-07:00

Cetacean Transformation

2011-10-14T16:21:00.000-07:00

Tread On Me

2011-10-14T16:16:00.000-07:00

A flag for Stephen Hendee.

More Toilet Hours Than Can Ever Be Repaid

2011-10-14T16:11:00.000-07:00

SUPEREAGLE video

2011-01-29T09:40:00.000-08:00

SUPEREAGLE

2011-01-27T12:30:00.000-08:00

Press Release:

University of Nevada Las Vegas Department of Art is pleased to present SUPEREAGLE, a new exhibition by Shannon Eakins, Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Candidate. SUPEREAGLE will be on view at the Grant Hall Gallery on the UNLV campus from January 20-21.

Eakins’ installation is the culmination of her work during the past eighteen months in Las Vegas, presenting a mid-way survey of her artistic research in the Master’s Program. Investigating behavioral models, aggression, and temporal/spatial dynamics, the installation consists of new inflatable objects and looped video projects acting upon, through, and in spite of one another.

SUPEREAGLE is a conjuring and translation of Freud’s notion of the Super-ego, realized as an erratically transforming inflatable zebra, looped projection, and series of transportable televisions broadcasting linked videos depicting carefully staged acts of faux-predation. As Eakins has described, the title potentially evokes a child’s attempted articulation of the word (and concept) “Super-ego”—as though misspeaking may actually describe and offer a new—super—totemic figure for addressing the phenomena of attempting to understand and illustrate Freud’s model of intellectual enhancement. SUPEREAGLE? Are you serious? Super-Eagle! Yes! Like the children’s toys that are the subject of her videos (plush wolves disembowel prey and are then themselves disemboweled in a continuous loop of stop-motion trauma), her work attempts to not merely illustrate but rather convey the challenges of manifesting Freud’s visions in our changing world. We are unequipped, we are weak, we are trying, but somehow we always fall short.

Shannon Eakins moved to Las Vegas from Tacoma, where she worked as an educator, glassblower, and dog trainer. Her recent projects address mammalian behavioral models, fear-based targets, and our shared, societal distance to nature. And SUPEREAGLES.

Videos:

Bellagio Pillow Project

2011-01-27T12:20:00.001-08:00

Summer Seals

2011-01-16T18:45:00.000-08:00

2010-04-28T10:56:00.000-07:00

Breeding Pattern

2010-04-28T10:35:00.000-07:00

Introduce House Sparrows into your environment today!
Also, learn more about the propagation of this species through the Vagus Nerve.

For Grackly...too old for fighting with his reflection.

2010-04-28T10:26:00.000-07:00

Pinata Sunday

2010-02-21T23:05:00.000-08:00

Punch This Bag

2010-01-10T15:49:00.000-08:00

To read this text, Click This Thumbnail

To see the bag in action, Play This Clip

White Snake/ White Heat

2010-01-10T15:38:00.001-08:00

Last Leg

2009-12-16T12:08:00.000-08:00

Terrariums

2009-10-15T21:00:00.001-07:00

Only the Lonely

2009-09-23T17:09:00.001-07:00

Top image: installation view of a locked room with audio playing inside, Tamarus Studio, Las Vegas, NV. Bottom: Self-Portrait in XO Karaoke, Las Vegas. Below is the recording of the entire set; all songs regarding being lonely/alone, performed in seclusion.

Ice Purse

2009-09-09T11:15:00.000-07:00

Sam's Town

2009-09-05T16:35:00.000-07:00

As a new resident to Las Vegas, I am seeing multiple artificial environments and thinking about the work that it takes both the creator and those experiencing those environments to make such places possible. Tremendous amounts of innovation, research, and resources go into making places of fantasy and visitors are asked to do their part and not look behind the curtain. Really, it's better for everyone.

Fall 2009

2009-09-02T17:29:00.000-07:00

Scarlet Letter Hotpants

2009-08-30T11:16:00.000-07:00

On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth,  surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic  flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore; and which was of a splendor in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony.
………..
"She hath good skill at her needle, that's certain,"  remarked one of the female spectators; "but did ever  a woman, before this brazen hussy, contrive such a  way of showing it! Why, gossips, what is it but to  laugh in the faces of our godly magistrates, and make  a pride out of what they, worthy gentlemen, meant for  a punishment?"

"It were well," muttered the most iron-visaged of the old dames, "if we stripped Madam Hester's rich gown off her dainty shoulders; and as for the red letter, which she hath stitched so curiously, I'll bestow a rag of mine own rheumatic flannel, to make a fitter one!"

"O, peace, neighbours, peace!" whispered their youngest companion. "Do not let her hear you! Not a stitch in that embroidered letter, but she has felt it in her heart."
................
The Scarlet Letter: A  Romance
By Nathaniel Hawthorne
Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1850
Excerpts from Chapter II, The Market-Place

How does your garden grow?

2009-08-26T21:05:00.001-07:00

Strabismus Explored

2009-06-25T20:48:00.000-07:00

Magical......

While You Were Out

2009-03-14T21:05:00.000-07:00

Preserving pigeon wings:
Soak in dense salt water for two weeks
Nail to a board
Dry for one week
See them at The Telephone Room

Black Bag at Tollbooth Gallery

2008-12-06T17:30:00.000-08:00

More from Black Bag

2008-10-29T13:53:00.000-07:00

Black Bag

2008-10-29T12:22:00.000-07:00

Puppy Bag

Black Bag

2008-10-29T11:37:00.000-07:00

Bag Mouth (above) is a portion of a project for Tacoma's Tollbooth Gallery.

It will open November 18th.

Black Bag is an attempt to make charged scenarios with mechanized toy parts and plastic bags.
Technology and instinct (fear, aggression, care, the search for food) are intertwined in a relationship that is complex and exciting to me. I don't know why my T.V. works better when I hit it, but it does. Focusing my research on animal models offers a critical distance to engage with these questions. Animals are often regarded as living machines that use neurons instead of electronic components to create complex situations. To me this belief, raises as many questions about humans as it does animals.

Some of the pirated machines in Black Bag were originally intended to imitate humans, some animals, and some are undecided (Elmo?). By veiling the toys in plastic bags, I am striving for visceral responses to entirely manufactured, mechanical scenes.

Recently Spayed

2008-10-29T11:19:00.000-07:00

I Made This for Us

2008-10-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

If you look very carefully on the bridge, you can see the peregrine falcon I am trying to befriend.

In Tacoma, peregrine falcons have nested on the Murray Morgan Bridge and, more recently, on the cornices of many of the buildings that surround us, downtown. Our trash has become the diet of their prey (pigeons), and the falcons themselves have integrated seamlessly into our built environment, claiming it their own; concealing themselves, hunting, eating, breeding.The falcons circle us, but are not our pets. The falcons circle us, but I am not sure if they are wild or not. Are they pointing towards new ways for us to activate our own environment? Does their success justify our departure from the natural world? Do the tactics and devices of falconry offer us any solace or direction? In these images, I am attempting to lure a falcon closer by making exquisite (to me) falconry gear.

Review in City Arts Tacoma, The Curator's Eye

2008-10-19T13:49:00.000-07:00

Overkill

2008-10-08T20:40:00.000-07:00

from the press release for icebox contemporary:

Sport hunting research has made significant strides in attracting deer using sounds and smells related to the breeding process. Working as powerful motivators, these lures offer hunter the opportunity to easily communicate with deer on their own terms, however false that communication may be.

Overkill, an installation by Eakins, is an environment designed to entice whitetail deer to come into the gallery. She is hunting for viewers. Her prey is deer. This work hopes to engage wild animals in genuine (if not strictly visual) ways. She is curious if a wild animal could have a shared aesthetic experience with humans; she is attempting to meet them halfway using known lures to get them through the door. If the gallery smells like deer, it must be deer, right? Like children leaving milk and cookies for Santa, Eakins is interested in the longshot. Her hope is that the crowd (deer and people, maybe) will find what they are looking for--perhaps a willing mate, an appreciation of the objects, sounds, and smells, or maybe just a quiet place to graze.

Shark Sketch

2008-10-08T13:41:00.000-07:00

Scenes from Mutton Busting

2008-10-07T17:43:00.000-07:00

Woolly Rhino

2008-09-25T19:32:00.000-07:00

Beautiful Males

2008-09-12T18:02:00.000-07:00

The pretty things are going to hell

They wore it out but they wore it well........

David Bowie

Home Sweet Home

2008-09-08T13:23:00.000-07:00

Embroidery on recycled fabric scraps. 2006. Dimensions variable.
Dozens of fabric scraps were hand-stitched with the phrase "Home Sweet Home" and placed outside near an area where house sparrows, an introduced species, were building their nest.

Ranger

2008-09-08T12:54:00.000-07:00

What is that pile up there?

Ranger is a project made from the side of the road about the side of the road.

Speak

2008-07-27T11:39:00.000-07:00

I like that people hit their televisions and wiggle the power cords of their computers. Technology and natural phenomena are intertwined in a relationship that is complex and exciting to me. I want people to approach my work like they would a raccoon that they don’t know.

This photo is from a recent show at Fulcrum Gallery in Tacoma, Local 253.

Dave R. Davison reviews Local 253 for Tacoma Weekly
Rosemary Ponnekanti reviews Local 253 for the Tacoma News Tribune

Shannon Eakins

Celebrate Life Cake!

Pretty Birdie

Canyon Landscape Study

Cetacean Transformation

Tread On Me

More Toilet Hours Than Can Ever Be Repaid

SUPEREAGLE video

SUPEREAGLE

Bellagio Pillow Project

Summer Seals

Breeding Pattern

For Grackly...too old for fighting with his reflection.

Pinata Sunday

Punch This Bag

White Snake/ White Heat

Last Leg

Terrariums

Only the Lonely

Ice Purse

Sam's Town

Fall 2009

Scarlet Letter Hotpants

How does your garden grow?

Strabismus Explored

While You Were Out

Black Bag at Tollbooth Gallery

More from Black Bag

Black Bag

Black Bag

Recently Spayed

I Made This for Us

Tweet

Overkill

Shark Sketch

Scenes from Mutton Busting

Woolly Rhino

Beautiful Males

Home Sweet Home

Ranger

Speak