Shawn Stucky

Inspiration. It's not something you can summon upon demand.

In my early work, I found it in music, feelings, and life experiences. I found great reward in taking the intangible passions and feelings that people share in music and translating them to a physical form. As time progressed I found that these pieces created a visual diary of my life, an atlas of the emotional terrain I had traveled.

Later, I found myself looking for new sources of inspiration. I chased different passions down alleys and through doorways, only to finally track it down in the most personal of places. It was quietly lurking in that mysterious space between waking-life and dreams, hiding in plain sight. As I fall asleep, I sometimes have what I call "silent film animations". These silent films play in a stop-motion fashion behind my eyelids. I see them vividly. The imagery ranges from children playing on swing sets to odd looking elderly men spinning chairs above their heads. Once I became aware of these films I began to consciously collect the imagery in my mind to later reproduce in my art.

Illinois Insitute of Art - Chicago, Chicago, US,