Shannon Cleere
Artist Statement
Shannon Cleere is a multidisciplinary visual artist whose work explores her experience as a first-generation American woman, artist, and mother within a broader social context. Interested in the ways cultural inheritance and societal norms shape identity, Cleere considers her role within a larger intergenerational legacy and contemplates the degree to which societal narratives represent or influence life choices. Her work challenges the injustices inherent in many societal expectations, exposing how social constructs, often under the veil of tradition, can dictate how people live their lives. Research-based and diaristic, her work features written documentation of the minutia of her daily life, visual representations of her living environment, personal belongings, and physical form. Employing strategies that expand on feminist discourses in art history, Cleere regularly integrates daily maintenance activities into her practice. Whether archiving vacuum bag debris or reinstalling laundry piles in alternative sites, she repeatedly interrogates her domestic sphere. This facet of her practice is performative, physical, and intrinsic to her role as an artist and a mother. Screen printing with household dust or transferring barely decipherable journal entries onto transparent chiffon fabric, Cleere draws attention to that which is not always visible, acknowledged, or valued.
Artist Bio
Born to Irish parents, Shannon Cleere grew up in South America and Southeast Asia, moving to the United States to attend the Evergreen State College in Washington State. She completed her BA in Florence, Italy, at Lorenzo de’ Medici – The Italian International Institute, where she focused on fresco restoration, art history, and the Italian language. She earned her MFA in Visual Art from the Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2024 and received the VCFA Center for Arts + Social Justice Fellowship Grant. As a CASJ fellow, Cleere interrogated the vast inequities of unpaid domestic labor, illustrating how capitalism repeatedly exploits women’s bodies, labor, and emotional capacities. Cleere is co-founder of l l l Artist Fund, an artist grant provider, and is a Teaching Artist for Path with Art, a non-profit organization offering arts programming to individuals affected by trauma. Cleere has exhibited her work in cities across the US and was featured in Entre Rios Books’ 2023 City of Dreadful Night by James Thomson and Suboart Magazine’s May 2024 issue. Cleere lives and works in Seattle, Washington.