Exhibition | Portland Show

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11th Biennial Portland Show
Greenhut Galleries
April 7 – May 28, 2022

Opening Reception: Saturday, April 9 from 1-3 pm (EST)

Participating artists: Chris Beneman, Matt Blackwell, Mary Bourke, Gary Buch, Brian Chu, Thomas Connolly, Sandi Donnelly, Tom Flanagan, Linden Frederick, Philip Frey, Kathleen Galligan, Tom Glover, Alison Goodwin, Abe Goodale, Roy Germon, Frank Gregory, Tom Hall, Lindsay Hancock, Celeste Henriquez, Maret Hensick,Thomas Higgins, Lissa Hunter, Tina Ingraham, Hilary Irons, William Irvine, Penelope Jones, Sarah Knock, Margaret Lawrence, C Michael Lewis, Don Matson, Dean McCrillis, Erin McGee Ferrell, Nancy Morgan Barnes, Colin Page, Tom Paiement, Liz Prescott, Shannon Rankin, Alison Rector, Alec Richardson, Kathleen Robbins, Jenny Scheu, Kathi Smith, Alice Spencer, Sean Ware, Holden Willard, Richard Wilson

For more information
Greenhut Galleries
146 Middle St, Portland, ME 04101
(207) 772-2693

Image: Circumvent, 2022, handcut, layered printed maps on paper, 9 x 6 1/2 inches
PRIVATE COLLECTION

Benefit | FAR x WIDE

FAR x WIDE | Project for Ukraine
March 15, 2022

I have donated one of my map weavings for FAR x WIDE: Project for Ukraine. Over 65 artists have donated their art to help raise funds for the people of Ukraine. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of the artwork will go to Razom’s Emergency Fund for Ukraine.

For more information visit: www.farbywide.com

With artwork by: Aaron Wexler, Adriana Farmiga, Alex Diamond, Alison Kudlow, Allison Honeycutt, Amy Sacksteder, Ariel Shea, Beatrice Wolert, Becky Brown, Beka Goedde, Brett Day Windham, Crystalle Lacouture, Elisa Soliven, Emily Noelle Lambert, Emily Weiner, Georgia Elrod, Gretchen Scherer, Hilary Doyle, Holden O'Brien, Jamie Romanet, Jane Kang Lawrence, Jason Rohlf, Jean Nagai, Jenna Ransom, Jenny Kemp, Jess Willa Wheaton, Jessica Simorte, Joey Weiss, Jordan Buschur, Julia Westerbeke, Justin Richel, Karen Dana Cohen, Karen Lederer, Katie Merz, Katy Krantz, Kerri Ammirata, Ky Anderson, Lauren Dana Smith, Lauren Portada, Liz Ainslie, Leonora Loeb, Malik John-Marc Purvis, Matthew F Fisher, Matthew López-Jensen, Max Manning, Meredith Iszlai, Michael Gac Levin, Mira Schor, Monica Carrier, Naomi Kawanishi Reis, Nina Kintsurashvili, Rachel Klinghoffer, Rachel Ostrow, Rob Matthews, Rob Nadeau, Sarah Morejohn, Shannon Rae Fincke, Shannon Rankin, Sharon Servilio, Shoshannah White, Stephanie Sherwood, Stuart Diamond, Sunny Chapman, Susan Carr, Taylor Loftin, Theresa Hackett, Thomas Spoerndle, Will Hutnick, Zach Seeger

Image: Subduction No. 5, 2021, Ink on hand-woven geologic maps, 9 x 6 inches
PRIVATE COLLECTION

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ABOUT: Far x Wide is an artist-run project that organizes thematic group exhibitions and art benefits presented online and in available spaces. Far x Wide seeks to explore a range of ideas by bringing artists together and providing an opportunity for the public to support their work while also supporting social and environmental justice organizations. Far x Wide is based in Brooklyn, NY and was founded by Jessica Cannon in October 2017.

Commission | Flowers of Life

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‘Flowers of Life’ | Participating Artists: Loutje Hoekstra, Philippe Stella, Angu Walters, Polly Verity, Alice Walton, Sam Chirnside, Tatianna Filidonos, Michael Hutter, Director Jacq, Shannon Rankin, Wang Ge, Marisa Papen + Michael Chichi

Earth Family commissioned a group of 13 international artists to produce a collection of interpretations. “By gathering these different visions and distinct lenses we aspire to push this vital cultural conversation forward & transform our beliefs around the vagina.” - Marisa Papen and Michael Chichi

Learn More

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‘Flowers of Life’ is available for sale as a limited edition set of 13 art prints/calendar and a book/manifesto.

Prints / Moon Calendar
The calendar is based on the 13 Moon Calendar, which we see as a beautiful and natural re-framing of time. We also included the bridge to the Gregorian calendar, so it can still be used in the practical sense. However conceptually it’s designed to amplify the cyclical theme of life.

Book
This thoughtfully designed manifesto contains all 13 art prints from the series, artist statements, philosophical musings, scientific studies, poems, essays, illustrations, photography & more.

With writing by :
Daniel Coffeen, Marisa Papen, Loutje Hoekstra, The Law of Time, Dr. Subba Roa and more.

Visit the Earth Family Shop

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I chose to participate in this important project because it is time to move beyond the limiting beliefs surrounding the feminine. Over the years, I have connected to the ‘Flower of Life’ symbolism in various ways including creating a large-scale map installation, composed of sacred geometry using the Vesica Piscis - the intersection of two circles refers to the pairing of two worlds; the sacred and earthly.

For this project, I created four ‘Flower of Life’ interpretations using layers of hand-cut and stippled vellum. These works evolved out of my Simpling Series.

These explorations refer to seeds, flowers and fruit; and have an emotional undertone and an indication of sexuality. They capture the essence of fertilization and reproduction; and celebrate the wonders of nature and the female body. The sacred symbolism of the ‘Flower of Life’ in all forms represents pure potential, rebirth, growth and emergence.

Exhibition | Counter Mapping

516 ARTS | Counter Mapping
October 16, 2021 – January 22, 2022

516 ARTS presents Counter Mapping, a group exhibition and series of public programs focusing on map-related artworks by 14 local, national, and international artists and art collectives. Co-curated by Viola Arduini and Jim Enote (Zuni Pueblo), the exhibition engages with geography, identity, politics, and the environment through painting, sculpture, photography, video, and installation. “Counter mapping” is a practice of mapping against dominant power structures to reclaim stories and memories of place.

This exhibition is inspired in part by Jim Enote’s work on a counter mapping project he led for the A:shiwi A:wan Museum and Heritage Center at Zuni Pueblo, where he invited several Zuni artists to create maps of the region from a Zuni perspective. He says “It has been said by many that more lands have been lost to Native people through mapping than through physical conflicts.” 

Counter Mapping springs from a time when maps have acquired a central presence in our lives. From election maps, to color-coded data collection on the Covid-19 pandemic, maps have become a familiar and often contested visual language. The exhibition challenges the common idea of maps as objective and universal tools for geographical knowledge. Conventional Western mapping has been historically used to track, register, and achieve land exploitation. Today, with processes such as gerrymandering, mapping performs an important role in political, social, and cultural systems. This exhibition investigates how different ways of tracking and mapping affect the meanings and perceptions of places, and reflect upon the power structures that define those views. 

The co-curators of Counter Mapping examine diverging approaches to mapping from their own experiences – Jim Enote as an Indigenous leader, activist and farmer, and Viola Arduini as an immigrant and educator. 

They have included work by artists Val Britton (Portland, OR), Felipe Castelblanco (Colombia/Switzerland), Cortney Metzger (Osage - Albuquerque, NM), Shannon Rankin (Roswell, NM), Jamie Robertson (Huston, TX), Ana Serrano (Portland, OR), UglyJerry, Steven Yazzie Navajo - Denver, CO), Mallery Quetawki (Zuni Pueblo - Albuquerque, NM), Drew Trujillo(Albuquerque, NM), Minnoosh Zomorodinia (San Pablo, CA), and collectives Basement Films (Albuquerque, NM), Cog*nate Collective (San Diego, CA), and Friends of the Orphan Signs (Albuquerque, NM).

These artists question what constitutes a map, what aspects of the land are mapped and for what reason. For example, Val Britton examines the marks and symbols that compose maps, creating immersive and site-specific installations for the public to explore. Jamie Robertson creates counter narratives that delve into the artist’s African American heritage. The Albuquerque collective Friends of the Orphan Signs offer a communal and public archive that expands outside the gallery space and invites the audience to participate.

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Counter Mapping
ON VIEW | October 16, 2021 – January 22, 2022
View Fall/Winter Program Calendar
View Counter Mapping Brochure with the curators’ essays

Feature | 12 NM Artists to Know

Southwest Contemporary | The New Mexico Field Guide, 2021
Shannon Christine Rankin: 12 New Mexico Artists to Know Now
MAY 25, 2021

Artist Shannon Christine Rankin works with maps to depict new, reimagined, and ever-changing geographies.

Roswell, NM | shannonchristinerankin.com | @shannonchristinerankin

The Earth often feels entirely quantified; as if everything is laid out neatly and named. But of course, maps are surprisingly inaccurate. The relative size of things, even the fact that most of South America is east of Florida, are often eschewed in our own mental maps. And then, of course, there are the borders that shift, the rivers and glaciers slowly moving, and in our own neighborhoods, the “desire trails” created across a patch of grass trod by too many pedestrians, the nameless but familiar alleys that never shore up in any atlas.

Shannon Christine Rankin works with maps and their vernacular to orient us anew to the world and its most enduring quality: change. In series like Earth Embroideries, she transcribes melting ice sheets in Antarctica via satellite imaging into minimal depictions with thread on paper, literally confronting our attempt to hold on to (and hold in our hands) what we can, even as the environment around us shifts, both challenging and sentimentalizing the act of map-making.

With change inevitably comes fragility. Nothing lasts, old things fade away. Rubbings created from uneven topographies in charcoal create gulfs on paper; nautical charts lose their bearings in collages created as laments for polar ice sheets. By splicing, scaling up and down, and reimagining the structure we put to place, we are called to look closer and closer. To ask: what is that most familiar terrain beneath your feet and in your mind? The sandstone and shale on this swath of land are here because this was once a shallow sea, but there’s a new geography now. Throughout Rankin’s work, these new geographies are multiplied, layered, and complicated by perception, experience, and the sense of aliveness inherent in change. — Maggie Grimason

Maggie Grimason is a writer and editor living in Albuquerque, NM. She edited a collection of essays on public art, Visually Speaking, was previously the Arts & Lit editor of the Weekly Alibi, and contributes to many other independent publications. When she's not writing, she's walking the bosque, planning her next trip, or writing poetry in bed.

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Exhibition | Tactile Sublime

DODOMU
Tactile Sublime
June 3 - 29, 2021

VIEW THE EXHIBITION

dodomu is a contemporary online gallery with a team based in Brooklyn, NY. We focus on showcasing emerging artists through online group exhibitions and represent a variety of media such as painting, photography, sculpture, digital and mixed media with emphasis on abstraction. While currently all of our operations are virtual, our longterm goal is to open a physical space in the future as we continue to grow.

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Review | Press Herald

Mayo Street Arts Pop-Up Gallery
January 1 - 29, 2021

Review by Jorge S. Arango for the Portland Press Herald

Shannon Rankin uses maps to express the constancy of change. Maps are fundamentally about charting and defining, fixing with exactitude some sense of place. Yet there are metaphorical maps as well: maps of the mind (where memory and experience are the sextants and compasses of a personal cartography), career maps (which navigate the path of our livelihoods), emotional maps (which bind us to expectations about relationships that don’t allow for growth and development), and so on. Yet boundaries keep shifting – glaciers melt, one country annexes another, we have revelations that shatter our identities, we get downsized, we grow apart and divorce. Rankin obscures and changes the neat grids, longitudes and latitudes of her maps using ink, salt and wax. By doing so, she captures the ephemeral reality and usefulness of any map.

– Jorge S. Arango

Exhibition | Postcards of Positivity

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Postcards of Positivity
Artrinity
Dallas, TX

June 15 - July 31, 2020

I donated three pieces to Postcards of Positivity, during the Pandemic, benefiting artists and Artist Relief organized by Artrinity and The Goss-Michael Foundation

For more information visit Artrinity

Images: Untitled l, ll, lll, ink, pigmented graphite, rust, wax on topographic maps, mounted to paper, 6" x 4", 2020.

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Collaboration | Joshua Hagler

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Postcards of Positivity
Artrinity
Dallas, TX

June 15 - July 31, 2020

I collaborated on this piece with Joshua Hagler and we donated it to Postcards of Positivity, during the Pandemic, benefiting artists and Artist Relief organized by Artrinity and The Goss-Michael Foundation

For more information visit Artrinity

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Image: Untitled, 2020, ink oil and wax on collaged topographic map, 6 x 4 inches

A collaboration between Shannon Rankin & Joshua Hagler
Copyright The Artists

Exhibition | Simulacrush

[ON]now | Simulacrush
CMCA's first virtual exhibition
curated by SISTERED
Dec 14, 2019 - Apr 5, 2020

Simulacrush features eighteen artists meditating on states of reality across media. This timely group of work wrestles with systems of difference, communicating and distorting truth in a hyperreal fashion—simulacra. In a moment where information is manifested, digested, and regurgitated with extreme speed, presenting this work in a virtual environment becomes necessary to understanding the states in which we find ourselves and the ways we manipulate it. Here there is an incredible amount of fact, so much that it becomes fiction, or does it? This group of work offers a glimpse at the creation of truth from a distorted copy of reality. This is liquid, urgent, thrashing, seductive.

Artists included:
Ben DeHaan, Zoe Fox, Elizabeth Hoy, Nate Luce, Heather Lyon, Mugwort (Jeonguk Choi + Soomin Kim), Oliver, Shannon Rankin, Joshua Reiman, Bob Richardson, Justin Richel, Tollef Runquist, Will Sears, Matt Shaw, Anoushe Shojae-Chaghorvand, Irina Skornyakova, Riley Watts, Robert Younger

VIEW EXHIBITION

Guest Curator | Curious Nature

Curious Nature
2018 Alumni Triennial Exhibition 
The Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art 
Portland, ME

August 3 - September 15, 2018

ICA at MECA

Curious Nature brings together a diverse group of artists who draw inspiration from the natural world. Employing various mediums, from painting to sculpture, photography, and installation, their works are rooted in the act of looking closer.

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness. - John Muir

These artists explore our relationship with the natural world through investigating the structure of reality, daily rhythms, beauty, texture, and emergent patterns. Focusing their attention on places and processes that are often overlooked, they illuminate the various forces affecting ecosystems and the environment that surrounds us. Their perspectives range from the micro and macro, revealing new views of familiar terrain. In an attempt to capture that which is in a state of constant transformation, they record their surroundings, yielding works that inspire our own sense of awe, inviting us to both celebrate nature and protect it. - Guest Curator, Shannon Rankin ’97.

Rankin’s selections include fifteen artists exhibiting diverse works that range from painting, printmaking and photography, to sculpture, ceramics, metalwork and installation. Artists include: Annika Early MFA ’16 (Portland, ME), Kristin Fitzpatrick (West Kennebunk, ME), Danielle Gerber ’12 (Portland, ME), Alisha Gould MFA ’10 (Kennebunk, ME), Kayla Goulden ’13 (Portland, ME), Lenka Konopasek MFA ’01 (Salt Lake City, UT), Mark Marchesi ’99 (Portland, ME), Tessa Green O'Brien MFA ’16 (South Portland, ME), Isabelle O'Donnell ’17 (Portland, ME), Catherine Quattrociocchi ’17 (Portland, ME), Sam Richardson ’15 (Portland, ME), Celeste Roberge ’79 (South Portland, ME), Bryan Stryeski MFA ’01 (Brooklyn, NY and Avon, CT), Sarah Camille Wilson ’07 (Burlington, VT) and Charley Young MFA ’14 (Halifax, NS).

Images courtesy of the Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art. Photography by Kyle Dubay

Review | The Rib

Water is Everything
Drive-By Projects
November 18, 2017-January 16, 2018

Review by Mallory A. Ruymann for The Rib

Water is Everything unpacks the physical, historical, and socio-political shape of water with paintings by Judith Belzer and Cheryl Molnar, and works on paper by Joseph Smolinski and Shannon Rankin.

Molnar's contribution, Cliffside, depicts a house balancing on the edge of a cliff, a structure which Molnar delicately incised into the painting’s wood support. Though not explicitly rendered, erosion and other landscape elements (represented by dense clusters of painted paper) associated with our rapidly changing coastlines hint at the presence of water. Belzer’s small untitled oil-on-canvases (from the Half Empty Half Full series) portray the Hoover and Glen Canyon dams. The breakdown of the renewable water cycle means that these dams will soon become obsolete, though their physical forms will persist. Belzer paints the dams in an abstract style that de-emphasizes their present function in favor of their form, presaging their unproductive--but stylized--future role as monuments. The future also concerns Smolinski, whose phosphorescent-like Open Water drawings capture the uncertainty of what climate change may do to bodies of water. Rankin’s Earth Embroideries preserve satellite images of arctic landscapes in the medium of thread on paper, counteracting the ongoing transformation wrought on those landscapes by slowly melting glaciers. A cluster of branded water bottles stands on a plinth at the front window of the exhibition. Not credited to any particular artist, the cooperative sourcing of these vessels offers a potential salve to water’s precarious state. By working collectively around shared goals, we can perhaps determine the destiny of water.

- Mallory A. Ruymann

Exhibition | Water is Everything

Water is Everything
Drive-by Projects
Watertown, MA

November 18, 2017 - January 16, 2018  
Opening reception: Saturday, November 18, 3-5pm  
Hours: Thursday 12 - 4 pm or by appointment 617.835.8255

Drive-by Projects

Water is Everything, an exhibition of paintings by Judith Belzer and Cheryl Molnar, and works on paper by Joseph Smolinski and Shannon Rankin.

Review by Mallory A. Ruymann for The Rib.

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WATER IS EVERYTHING

DRIVE-BY PROJECTS

NOVEMBER 18, 2017 - JANUARY 16, 2018

JUDITH BELZER
CHERYL MOLNAR
SHANNON RANKIN
JOSEPH SMOLINSKI

BY MALLORY A. RUYMANN
REACTION > WATERTOWN, MASSACHUSETTS
JANUARY 25, 2018

Water is Everything unpacks the physical, historical, and socio-political shape of water with paintings by Judith Belzer and Cheryl Molnar, and works on paper by Joseph Smolinski and Shannon Rankin.

Molnar's contribution, Cliffside, depicts a house balancing on the edge of a cliff, a structure which Molnar delicately incised into the painting’s wood support. Though not explicitly rendered, erosion and other landscape elements (represented by dense clusters of painted paper) associated with our rapidly changing coastlines hint at the presence of water. Belzer’s small untitled oil-on-canvases (from the Half Empty Half Full series) portray the Hoover and Glen Canyon dams. The breakdown of the renewable water cycle means that these dams will soon become obsolete, though their physical forms will persist. Belzer paints the dams in an abstract style that de-emphasizes their present function in favor of their form, presaging their unproductive--but stylized--future role as monuments. The future also concerns Smolinski, whose phosphorescent-like Open Water drawings capture the uncertainty of what climate change may do to bodies of water. Rankin’s Earth Embroideriespreserve satellite images of arctic landscapes in the medium of thread on paper, counteracting the ongoing transformation wrought on those landscapes by slowly melting glaciers.

A cluster of branded water bottles stands on a plinth at the front window of the exhibition. Not credited to any particular artist, the cooperative sourcing of these vessels offers a potential salve to water’s precarious state. By working collectively around shared goals, we can perhaps determine the destiny of water.  

Drive-By Projects
Located at 81 Spring Street in Watertown, MA, Drive-By is a small, innovative space committed to exhibiting provocative work in its storefront windows and small gallery.

Founded by Beth Kantrowitz (Allston Skirt Gallery) and Kathleen O'Hara (OHT Gallery), Drive-By is open Thursdays 12-4 and by appointment, though you can always drive by our windows to view the current exhibition.
drive-byprojects.com

Mallory A. Ruymann is an educator, curator, and art historian based in Boston.

Background image:
Shannon Rankin, Earth Emroidery (Glacial Furrows), 2016, hand stitched thread on paper, 7 x 7"

Exhibition | Materiality

Materiality: The Matter of Matter
Center for Maine Contemporary Art
November 11, 2017 - February 11, 2018

You begin with the possibilities of the material. –Robert Rauschenberg

The question of how and why an artist uses materials has long been a topic of consideration in art history. Today, many artists are looking to this question and seeking to find a balance between what they use to make work and the concepts behind them. Providing agency to the materials themselves, artists are looking at materials as a means of communication, whether they are expanding on traditional media and narratives or utilizing everyday objects to construct new forms. Exploring these concerns in their work, the artists included in the exhibition, all with ties to Maine, are also considering why they choose to work with certain matter in our current material culture and social climate, and the role that these materials play within it.