My Story

Hi, I’m Shauna.

Artist · The Glens of Antrim, Northern Ireland

When I was eight years old, I drew a fox in class. My teacher loved it so much she kept it on the wall. Twenty years later, my niece walked into that same school — and there it still was. I'd like to think that fox knew exactly what it was doing.

I've always known this was what I was meant to do. I'd just been accepted into university to study art when I was offered a sensible job with a sensible salary. As you do, I took it. The brushes were quietly put away.

But art doesn’t leave you. It waits.

Three years ago, I picked them back up — first a few pieces for the house, a wedding gift for my sister, some commissions — and something in me quietly came back to life. Now I paint every chance I get. And more often than not, my two daughters are right there beside me, paintbrushes in hand. My youngest, Caitlin, has been known to quietly add her own creative input to my work when I'm not looking. Somewhere in the depths of a large dragon commission, there are brushstrokes that are entirely hers. The client has no idea. We're keeping it that way.

Painting is where I go when the world gets loud. It's the place where time disappears and everything else falls away. It is, quite simply, where I feel most like myself.

Every piece I create is built on the belief that a painting should make you feel something — that it should stop you, even just for a moment, and take you somewhere else. Whether it's a cheeky donkey that makes you smile, a majestic stag that fills you with quiet awe, or a wildflower meadow you can lose yourself in — every piece carries something intentional. A feeling. A symbol. A reminder of something true.

Some pieces carry something deeper still — a belief that beauty exists even in our hardest moments, that colour can be a kind of medicine, and that sometimes the most healing thing in the world is to simply stand in front of something lovely and breathe.

I'm still chasing the dream — just with a lot more paint on my hands, two small assistants I didn't hire, and more joy in my heart than I ever expected.

Welcome to my world. I hope something here finds its way onto your wall, and into your heart.

Shauna x