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Shawn Evans

@_shawn_evans

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@rukaj.gallery
“Recent Paintings” Nov 12 - Dec 10, Toronto
“As Far as Here” March 3-26, New York

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In the studio with Shawn Evans as he prepares for his upcoming solo presentation, Recent Paintings.

#contemporarylandscapepainting #contemporarypainting #landscapepainting by @_shawn_evans

“People have a natural connection to trees. On a road trip or even your daily commute, there’s always that one tree you notice and remember.”

🎨 Today’s #ArtistSpotlight features Toronto-based painter @_shawn_evans, whose landscapes explore memory, history, and our enduring relationship with trees.

Growing up in Saskatchewan, Shawn was surrounded by vast prairie landscapes. Ironically, when he attended art school in Calgary, landscape painting was the last thing he wanted to pursue. But years later, a single landscape photograph sparked an unexpected obsession, leading him to revisit Canadian landscape traditions. Immersing himself in the work of the Group of Seven, he began to see the genre in a new light.

His connection to trees grew from there. After visiting the towering redwoods in California and reflecting on his childhood in a place where large trees were relatively rare, Shawn became fascinated by the presence trees hold in both landscapes and personal memory. “I’m thinking about my childhood through the lens of a tree,” he shared. “A tree can become a portal to access parts of our history.”

Much of Shawn’s landscape practice emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, when travel restrictions meant experiencing landscapes primarily through books, photographs, and art history. He began painting imagined landscapes that blend personal memory, historical references, and experimentation.

The piece Shawn has donated to this year’s auction comes from his ongoing Quantum Sky series. Inspired by quantum computing, the series explores multiple replications and reinterpretations of a single landscape. “If I can create enough versions of the same painting,” Shawn reflects, "maybe I’ll find what I’m looking for.” By supporting AAOG, Shawn hopes to inspire people to reflect on their own connections to the natural world and the places that have shaped them.

Check out Shawn’s work in-person at @rukajgallery in Toronto this upcoming November.

🌳 AAOG will be live on Givergy between September 17-24, 2026
📬 Questions about the auction? Email us at outreach@naturebasedsolutionsfoundation.org by @_shawn_evans

Rukaj Gallery is pleased to announce Shawn Evans' first solo presentation in Toronto. Join us for the opening reception on November 12th from 6-8 pm.

Based on a single photograph taken during his residency at the Banff Centre for Arts, Shawn Evans (Canadian, b. 1986) has been developing a distinct and highly nuanced series of paintings that engage with chronological time, grounded questions of representation, limits of perception, and the status of images in the contemporary world. The Quantum Sky series explores the Albertan landscape through iterative works across mediums. Evan’s recalls a rich tradition of landscape painting, yet through sustained engagement one realizes he has developed alongside a more contemplative and conceptual axis. The work explores Canada’s landscape painting tradition and asks what that legacy can look like today. Evans completed his BFA at the Alberta University of the Arts in 2009.

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Shawn Evans Lake's Lullaby No. 3 2026. Courtesy of Rukaj Gallery. Photo: LF Documentation. © Shawn Evans.

#landscapepainting #contemporarypainting by @_shawn_evans

Loading… by @_shawn_evans

Incoming ☄️☄️☄️ by @_shawn_evans

This painting will be auctioned off Thursday for @artauctionforoldgrowth 🌲🌲 Link in bio 🌲 When I made this painting I was looking at Van Gogh’s drawings on brown paper. They are such beautiful articulations of line and space, something I have been all consumed by since discovering the oil stick which has brought my paintings very much into the realm of drawing. by @_shawn_evans

Here’s one of my favourite paintings from a series of 55 I completed earlier this summer. What makes this piece even more special is that it reconnected me with an early collector from Calgary. I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who has supported and continues to support my work allowing me to pursue this stupid idea of an art career. Thank you! by @_shawn_evans

Finalizing this painting for an upcoming exhibition with @newzones It will be my first with the gallery, and I’m thrilled to be showing in a space I frequented so often during art school ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥 by @_shawn_evans

Shawn Evans's 'Shores of Reality' is currently on view at the gallery. Based on a single photograph taking during his residency at the Banff Centre for Arts, Shawn Evans (Canadian, b. 1986) has been developing a distinct and highly nuanced series of paintings that engage with chronological time, grounded questions of representation, limits of perception, and the status of images in the contemporary world.
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1: Shawn Evans Shores of Reality 2021 Courtesy of Rukaj Gallery. Photo: LF Documentation. © Shawn Evans
2: Shawn Evans Shores of Reality 2021 (installation) Courtesy of Rukaj Gallery. Photo: LF Documentation. © Shawn Evans
#shawnevans by @_shawn_evans

Thrilled to be apart of @adac_amac upcoming group exhibition with @rukajgallery We will be presenting 2 new paintings for the exhibition. Hope to see you there!⁣⁣
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The Art Dealers Association of Canada (ADAC) is celebrating its 60th anniversary with a milestone pop-up exhibition. Bringing together more than 90 works from 52 member galleries nationwide, the exhibition charts the trajectory of Canadian art from the 1800s to the present day.⁣⁣
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June 11, 2026, Opening Night, 6:30 - 9:30pm ⁣⁣
June 12, 2026, 10am - 5:30pm⁣⁣
June 13, 2026, 10am - 5:30pm, *Panel Talk @ 1 - 2pm⁣⁣
June 14, 2026, 10am - 5:30pm, *Walking Tour @ 11am - 12pm⁣⁣
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Location: @bauxigallery 1384 Dufferin St. Toronto by @_shawn_evans

A huge thanks to the @torontoguardian for featuring me in their “Day in the Life” series.
Sharing the personal side of things outside of my art has never come easily, so here I am stepping a bit out of my comfort zone. The link to read is in my bio.

A massive thank you as well to Nicolas from @rukajgallery for writing such a thoughtful intro. by @_shawn_evans

SHAWN EVANS

Shawn Evans is a Canadian painter using landscape painting as a larger reflection of contemporary life.

With reference to a photograph that Evans took during a residency in Banff, he creates repeated iterations of a singular landscape. Each painting becomes a state of perception, never stable and constantly reframed, much like our world built on feeds and fragments, headlines and swipes.

Multiple versions of the same scene, layered with the possibility of infinite readings, never one definitive answer. They are about the dissonance between what is seen and what is understood, the war between perception and reality.

Newzones is excited to reintroduce Evans – a 2009 graduate from AUArts (formerly ACAD) – to Calgary as part of FreshFaces opening May 2nd.

Preview online now. by @_shawn_evans