About
Artist Statement
In my practice, I am interested in what is lost and found: the discarded remnants and belongings of strangers that sit upon the precipice of what can be both important and unimportant. Working from compiled, collected, and discarded objects, I strive to collect instances of lost relevance. Items like shopping lists and plastic bags that sit in a liminal space between necessary and useless. By recreating each object, I am interested in preserving and re-presenting the mundanity of the everyday, calling attention to its forgotten significance. Translating each found item into textiles I alter their medium and texture, creating an opportunity for the viewer to question the obscurity of the object in front of them; an unfamiliar familiar object. I employ textiles in my practice due to their tactile nature and history of domesticity and functionality in the home. I use fabric as it holds mark and form, it can rip and tear, and exists in a similar yet different space as the paper and plastic objects I re-create. There is a playfulness that exists with textiles as soft sculptures, and I encourage the audience to connect, touch and spend time with the lists. We buy, we use, we re-use, we run out; then we make lists to use and discard. We drop our plastic bag and it takes flight in the wind; not worth chasing. To remember to forget. To lose and to find.
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Bio
Shannyn Reid is an artist currently completing her MFA at York University, in Ontario. Reid has graduated with a BFA at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Grenfell Campus (2021), and has received The Shaw Shanks Memorial Award in Textiles in 2023. Reid is currently focused on creating art using found objects and textiles attempting to make art that speaks to anyone.
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