Sharon Shapiro, "Hell or High Water" 2014

td {border: 1px solid #cccccc;}br {mso-data-placement:same-cell;} Sharon Shapiro, “Hell or High Water,” 2014Painting on panel of Sybil Shepherd from Last Picture Show,  39" x 48" Sharon Shapiro is best known for her psychologically charged figurative paintings that explore the complexities of contemporary female experience. Drawing from personal archives, popular culture, and staged photography, she constructs semi-fictional narratives that examine adolescence, memory, and transformation. Her compositions often juxtapose placid domestic settings with uncanny or feral elements—wild animals, overgrowth, and dreamlike symbolism—evoking tension between nostalgia and disruption. Shapiro’s work engages painting as a site for emotional excavation, where color, gesture, and environment reflect themes of fragility, agency, and personal reckoning.Rooted in the cultural landscape of the American South, her practice reflects on femininity through both societal expectation and private interiority.