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Sharon Shapiro

@sharonshapiro

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𝙋𝙧𝙖𝙮𝙚𝙧 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙂𝙤𝙡𝙙𝙚𝙣 𝙇𝙖𝙣𝙙, 2026 Oil on canvas, 48 × 36 inches

This painting took me a while to title. Maybe because I’d just spent some time in Los Angeles, I kept thinking about all that gold and yellow, and Joan Didion’s “golden land,” her complicated vision of California as a place of beauty, promise, and contradiction.

The landscape and geese come from a diorama I photographed at the American Museum of Natural History. I photographed the women together at home, and I love that they fell into this posture on their own, without any direction from me.

There’s something about their posture that feels like both solidarity and exhaustion. I’ve had pause, play, rewind, and fast-forward on my mind for a while, but this one called for pause.

#thegoldenland #pauseandreflect #womenpaintingwomen #contemporarypainter by @sharonshapiro

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a month ago

𝓓𝓲𝓸𝓻𝓪𝓶𝓪 (𝓞𝓻, 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓤𝓷𝓹𝓪𝓲𝓷𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓗𝓮𝓪𝓻𝓽 𝓸𝓯 𝓪 𝓜𝓸𝓾𝓷𝓽𝓪𝓲𝓷 𝓛𝓲𝓸𝓷), oil on canvas, 60 x 44 inches

Last fall, I met up with my friend Rickey Laurentiis in New Orleans. We had talked about her modeling, and without overthinking it, we walked around Jackson Square and took some photos. I kept returning to one of her lying in tall grass with her braids sprawled out, and when I got home, I collaged her into a mountain lion diorama.

I shifted the scene into a full-moon nocturne, with indigo and violet, and cut a vivid seam of red-pink through it to signify a temperature shift, or something closer to a bruise beneath the surface.

A lion rests on a rock in the foreground, and her cub stands nearby. Both look toward her as she lies in the blue grass with her arms folded across her chest, completely at ease. I was thinking about tending, fostering, and a family formed in an unlikely terrain. Painting the rocks took longer than I anticipated, but layer by layer, they became a kind of altar. Something solid enough to hold this bond.

Rickey has since written a beautiful poem in response. I can’t share it yet, but I’m deeply moved and excited by the conversation it has opened between us. 🌒

#diorama #oilpainting #paintersandpoets #contemporaryfigurativepainting #womenpaintingwomen by @sharonshapiro

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8 months ago

𝓝𝓪𝓽𝓾𝓻𝓪𝓵 𝓗𝓲𝓼𝓽𝓸𝓻𝔂 (2025, oil on canvas, 48 x 60 inches)

This is the first in a new series that draws from museum dioramas—but it also builds on a body of work I’ve been developing over the past year.

These paintings explore how women and wild animals are staged in American visual culture—romanticized, endangered, and displayed as objects of wonder or control. I’m not repeating that script but pressing against it, presenting my figures as both strong and vulnerable, fully alive within their terrain.
 She stands in a late-summer flower bed, ringed by oryx—twelve eyes catching the light, somewhere between myth and memory, watchfulness and rest.

#contemporarypainting #womenpaintingwomen #oilpainting #figurativepainting #naturalhistory #dioramas by @sharonshapiro

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a year ago

A few photos from Thursday night’s opening of the Made in VA Biennial at Virginia MOCA. 💗 
It was such a pleasure to see the exhibition in the museum’s gorgeous new home, and especially to see 𝕋𝕣𝕒𝕔𝕜 𝕄𝕖𝕖𝕥 in such strong company 💪 
Thank you again to jurors @art__hak , @tylerblackwell and @itsdoublemc for including my work, and to everyone at Virginia MOCA for such a wonderful opening. I loved seeing old friends, meeting new ones, and watching people spend time with the work. A particular highlight was meeting artist Lorraine Fink, who is 102 (!) and was there for the opening (and stayed later than I did!) 
Made in VA Biennial Virginia MOCA, Virginia Beach On view through March 21, 2027 💫 by @sharonshapiro

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25 days ago

I’m so happy to have 𝕋𝕣𝕒𝕔𝕜 𝕄𝕖𝕖𝕥 included in the Made in VA Biennial at @virginiamoca , opening Thursday, September 10 and on view through March 21, 2027. It feels especially exciting to be part of this exhibition in the museum’s new home in Virginia Beach. 
𝕋𝕣𝕒𝕔𝕜 𝕄𝕖𝕖𝕥 brings three women together on a high school football field, armed with a flag, a slingshot, and a sword. I’ve long been interested in sites of spectacle and the expectations attached to them, and here the field becomes a stage for competition, camaraderie, play, and defiance. The saturated pink turns a familiar landscape into something heightened and slightly unreal. 
𝕋𝕣𝕒𝕔𝕜 𝕄𝕖𝕖𝕥, 2025
Oil on canvas, 60 × 48 inches 
Thank you @art__hak , @tylerblackwell and @itsdoublemc for selecting my work for the exhibition. I’m honored to be included alongside so many terrific Virginia artists. 
Looking forward to celebrating with everyone tomorrow night, 6–9pm! 💗 by @sharonshapiro

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a month ago

𝑺𝒖𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒍, oil on panel, 20 x 16 inches
🔮 🔮 🔮

Currently on view in 𝕋𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣 𝕎𝕚𝕝𝕕 at @spectrumfineart in Seattle until June 20th

➡️ to see beginning stage

#supernatural #tenderwild #seattlegallery #womenpaintingwomen #figurativepainting by @sharonshapiro

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4 months ago

new small painting 🌈🪓🌈🪓

𝓕𝓪𝓿𝓸𝓻𝓲𝓽𝓮 𝓢𝓸𝓷𝓰, oil on panel, 20 x 14 inches

#colorblocking #oilpainting #womenpaintingwomen #contemporaryfigurativepainting #choppingwood by @sharonshapiro

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a year ago

Botanicals (oil on panel, 20” x 16”)  I’ve been working on finishing up some paintings for my upcoming solo exhibition at @spectrumfineart in Seattle this May. 🌈 🎨 🌈

I took photos of these two models (who i’ve been lucky to collaborate with several times) in my studio one winter night several years ago. I often let the photos sit for months, sometimes years, before I translate the image into paint. In this process, color becomes less about direct observation and more about transformation.

I’m most interested in how color can hold tension between what is seen and what is felt, where the familiar slips into something slightly altered, unsettled, and alive.

#oilpainting #figurativepainting #spectrumfineart #newwork #soloshow by @sharonshapiro

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6 months ago

𝓒𝓸𝓷𝓿𝓮𝓻𝓽 (2025, oil on panel, 14 x 11 inches)

When I finished this painting, I realized it could hang either way (swipe to see it upside down).

I love working with this model because she moves effortlessly between strength and softness. Here she looks out with conviction, while her reflection in the crystal ball feels calm, almost meditative. 
Two versions of her share the same frame, revealing duality, transformation, and the space between seeing and being seen. 🔮  Convert reads two ways —con-VERT (to change) and CON-vert (a believer)—which feels right for this piece. 

#oilpainting #contemporaryfigurativeart #womenpainters #duality #pthaloturquoise #paintersoninstagram by @sharonshapiro

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a year ago

We’re thrilled to spotlight artist, Sharon Shapiro.

Sharon Shapiro is a Charlottesville, Virginia-based artist whose paintings explore the female experience through themes of fragility, agency, longing, and personal reckoning. Through expressive color, gesture, and psychologically charged environments, she creates layered compositions that examine the tension between societal expectation and private interiority.

Drawing from the cultural landscape of the American South, personal narrative, and contemporary life, Shapiro constructs emotional spaces where figures, objects, and landscapes become vessels for symbolic meaning. Her paintings explore opposing forces including imagination and reality, utopia and dystopia, and lightness and discomfort, reflecting the complexities of contemporary life.

Through painting, Shapiro investigates emotional excavation as an ongoing process. Her work invites viewers into intimate psychological landscapes, prompting questions about selfhood, desire, and the ways we navigate contradiction.

Rather than offering resolution, Shapiro’s paintings remain suspended in moments of emotional intensity, where vulnerability and transformation are actively unfolding.

Shapiro has exhibited at Spectrum Fine Art, SPRING/BREAK Art Show, Pollinator Art Space, the Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington, Garvey|Simon Projects, Pen + Brush, and the Mint Museum, among others. Her work has been featured in New American Paintings, Whitewall, Art Spiel, and The Washington Post. Based in Charlottesville, VA, Shapiro was recently selected for the 2026–2027 Made in VA Biennial at Virginia MOCA.

We’re honored to have Sharon as part of the community. by @sharonshapiro

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3 months ago

𝑻𝒓𝒂𝒅𝒘𝒊𝒇𝒆, oil on panel, 20 x 16 inches

Last painting of 2025 👋 and most recent one that sold 🔴

I love collaborating with models, especially when I capture a spontaneous gesture that happens during the shoot. Her instinct to unexpectedly lick the ax as a taboo gesture conflating fear and desire was💯

Here’s to more ax-licking in 2026! 🥂

#oilpainting #feralwoman #figurativepainting #womenartists #tradwifelife by @sharonshapiro

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9 months ago

𝕋𝕣𝕒𝕔𝕜 𝕄𝕖𝕖𝕥, 𝕠𝕚𝕝 𝕠𝕟 𝕔𝕒𝕟𝕧𝕒𝕤, 𝟞𝟘” 𝕩 𝟜𝟠”, 𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟝

This painting is about strength and defiance, especially regarding how women are often perceived.

The three women (all amazing models) gathered on a football field, dressed in a way that leans toward hyper-feminine—platform boots, cat ears, fur—yet they’re anything but delicate. I wanted the scene to feel like you’ve stumbled into some sort of rebellion or ceremony, where every detail—the flag, the slingshot, the sword—has its own story to tell.

The two standing figures are bold and commanding. One holds a flag while stepping on the back of the reclining woman with unapologetic confidence, and the other aims a slingshot right at you, daring you to step out of line. Even the woman lying down feels powerful, totally at ease with a sword by her side.

The women form a triangle of energy and intent, amplified by another triangle created by the visual break: the palette shifts from naturalistic tones to radiant pinks, merging the familiar and the fantastical.

There’s a deliberate tension between their feminine presentation and their unapologetically formidable attitudes. They’re not performing for anyone—they’re taking up space, pushing back against societal expectations, and owning their power.

The color shift from natural tones at the top to intense pinks at the bottom underscores that duality, blending rebellion, femininity, and a sense of wildness; the same energy of empowerment I want to bring to this chapter of America.

#contemporarypainting #contemporaryfigurativeart #womenpaintingwomen #womenpainters #trackmeet by @sharonshapiro

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2 years ago