Shawn Sanders

Shawn Sanders (b.1971) is a Bay Area artist whose practice spans painting, ceramics, jewelry, and bookmaking. His images are often arrived at through a layering process: washes of paint, coils of wire, strips of canvas, or thin slabs of clay are arranged in geometric compositions and coated in jewel toned paint and glaze. Many of Sanders's abstract motifs refer to what he describes as the “dark obscured contents of the universe — what’s out there?” Other works feature tender and expressive portraits, including a recent book of NIAD community members drawn from life, which was displayed at the 2024 SFMoMA Small Press Book Bazaar.

Sanders experiments in style and form across media, and incorporates feedback and chance into his practice. He explains, “I love to collaborate with the staff or the other artists, and to ask them, ‘what do you see?’ 

For me, my process is all about being different. When I’m making paintings, I’m moving them around a lot: I’ll have them side by side, I’ll rotate them upside down or vertically, I’ll put a new one in the middle… You keep getting different pictures that way, and you see different things. The shapes that I do, they come up in a lot of my paintings and pottery. I’ll incorporate similar designs into new work, but I’m into expanding my style so that nothing I do will ever look exactly the same.

I’ve always been into dinosaurs and stuff like that, for example. So in a painting, what I might be aiming for is for someone to recognize a little bit of either a claw or a tail, but at the same time feel like it’s something they’ve never seen before. A little bit of something familiar and a lot of something new and mysterious.” 

Shawn Sanders joined NIAD Art Center in 2021. His work has since been featured in exhibitions at Et al. Gallery in San Francisco, Casemore Gallery, Berkeley Art Center, Kala Art Institute, Chico Art Center, and the Oakland Museum of California. One of his unique hand-drawn books is in the permanent collection of the SFMoMA Library.

Shawn Sanders joined the NIAD community in 2021. He credits his mother for encouraging his natural artistic talent, stating, “My mother got me into art. I started coloring and painting. When I got here [to NIAD], I had never done ceramics before but nobody believes me. They say it looks like I’ve been doing it for years.”

Shawn’s works often include imprinted or carved eyes and a palette of deep, jeweled colors. When asked what themes he likes to explore within his art, he responded, “Dark obscured contents of the universe—what’s out there? I do ceramics, jewelry and painting, but right now I like ceramics the most. I get here and start from scratch. However it comes out, that’s how it comes out. I would rather do my own thing, being free to make anything in my head.”

“I’ve always wanted to make something that’s different, like I just did a spaceship, and I am doing totem poles and masks right now. I also made a platter for my mom. I thank my mom for getting me into art. It’s fun, relaxing.”