Shaney Watters

Hi there! Shaney here.

I have always felt foreign…born into the wrong family, moved to a foreign land, the Netherlands, to grow up, then returned to the US for my senior year of high school…definitely a stranger in a strange land.
After school, I set making art aside to pursue a sensible career as a psychotherapist. Ultimately realizing that an important part of me was missing and nothing made sense. Recognizing that loss, I made my way back to painting and haven’t again put my brushes down. I find creating allows me to reflect on, express feelings about, and ultimately find delight in all the messy beauty I experience in life all around and within me.
Influenced by nature, I delight in creating abstract-realism animal portraits. Within the layers of my paintings one can spy pencil, acrylics, 18k gold leaf, and oil paint.
Through personification of animal subjects, I aim to capture the raw and honest depiction of human emotions, generally my own. Hopeful to then connect with a viewer about their own emotions and experiences on a deeper level with an air of playful curiosity. Through my ongoing art experimentation, the love of my amazing husband, and my pack of rescue dogs I have finally found my home.