Shana Grugan

Born in Greenville, SC, Shana Grugan spent the majority of her childhood in Morrow, Georgia.  She currently resides in Pawleys Island, SC.  Her artistic inspiration includes Henri Matisse and Helen Frankenthaler, especially for color relationships and compositional movement.  As an acrylic painter, Shana uses transparent medium to establish layers and depth. 

She earned a BFA in Drawing and Painting from the University of Georgia, and continued her graduate studies with an MAT in Art Education from the University of South Carolina.  

Shana's work is largely informed by her Southern roots and coastal environment.  Much of what she paints draws upon the beauty of God’s creation: nature, people, and relationships.  She focuses on pattern, largely seen in the natural order of creation, and she enjoys exploring the concept of layers which make up a person’s individual and relational story.  The beauty of life most often results from the restoration of pain and suffering into healing and redemption.  This is a common theme in my art.

Shana's work is process-oriented, a reflection of these concepts: pattern and layer.  Using acrylic paint along with transparent medium she layers color.  She often uses masking as a technique to ultimately reveal initial layers in her compositions.  Shana's desire is to continue to lean further into these two concepts in her work as she explores the abstract subject matter of restoration and redemption.