Shauna Peck lives and works in San Diego, California. She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Claremont Graduate University and was nominated for the Los Angeles County Museum’s New Talent Award shortly thereafter. Over the course of her career, she has exhibited nationally and internationally, lectured at colleges and universities throughout Southern California, and participated in exhibitions in significant international contexts. In 2016, she was invited to exhibit her work in conjunction with COP21 in Paris. Her work is held in private, museum, and public collections, and her practice has been reviewed by major publications and prominent art critics in the United States and Europe. With a career spanning nearly three decades, Peck has developed a distinctive practice characterized by the continuous exploration of diverse materials and techniques, bringing together universal metaphors, contemporary narratives, and reflections on the relationship between technology and the natural landscape.
Shauna Peck lives and works in San Diego, California. She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Claremont Graduate University and was nominated for the Los Angeles County Museum’s New Talent Award shortly thereafter. Over the course of her career, she has exhibited nationally and internationally, lectured at colleges and universities throughout Southern California, and participated in exhibitions in significant international contexts. In 2016, she was invited to exhibit her work in conjunction with COP21 in Paris. Her work is held in private, museum, and public collections, and her practice has been reviewed by major publications and prominent art critics in the United States and Europe. With a career spanning nearly three decades, Peck has developed a distinctive practice characterized by the continuous exploration of diverse materials and techniques, bringing together universal metaphors, contemporary narratives, and reflections on the relationship between technology and the natural landscape.
Over the past decade, Shauna Peck’s practice has focused on the relationship between emerging technologies, the simulated world, and the progressive disappearance of the natural landscape. Through experimentation with diverse materials and techniques, the artist investigates the tensions between nature and artifice, reality and simulation, preservation and loss. The sensory and symbolic qualities of materials play a central role in the construction of her work: the sensuality of charcoal and the reflective properties of metallic pigments evoke the fragility of a threatened environment, while beeswax, bronze, and cement suggest the desire to protect the landscape by symbolically sealing images off from reality.
Her works often present fragmentary glimpses of landscapes and natural forms, establishing a tension between what is revealed and what remains concealed. This partial representation underscores the conflict between wilderness and human development, evoking an environment increasingly vulnerable to transformation. The landscape thus becomes a symbolic space in which the desire for preservation confronts the inevitability of loss.
At the core of Peck’s practice lies the ecological crisis, intertwined with social inequality and the fragility of democracy. Against a backdrop of disinformation and extremism, the artist reflects on the consequences of natural resource depletion and the disparities it produces, questioning who will benefit from environmental protection and who will be excluded from it. The preservation of the landscape consequently emerges not merely as an ecological concern, but as an ethical, political, and social issue.
Another fundamental theme is the simulated world, in which reality is progressively replaced by its representation. The increasing technological mediation of experience risks distancing human beings from nature, fostering a hyperreal perception in which images can become more accessible and persuasive than direct experience. This distance may encourage indifference toward environmental preservation, transforming the landscape into an image to be observed rather than an environment to be inhabited and protected.
Technology therefore assumes an ambivalent role. While it offers tools to document, preserve, and reproduce the natural world, it also raises questions about the possibility that simulation may ultimately replace reality and about the unequal distribution of opportunities for protection. The question of who will be protected and who will be left behind becomes central to Peck’s reflection on the relationship between human progress and environmental preservation.
Through material experimentation and visual inquiry, Peck investigates the contradictions of a world in transformation, exploring the relationships between nature and artifice, presence and absence, protection and loss. Her work invites us to reconsider humanity’s place in the world and our collective responsibility toward the environment, emphasizing the need to find a balance between technological development, social justice, and the preservation of the natural landscape.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
Her solo exhibitions include Luisa Catucci Gallery, Berlin, Germany (2024); Linda Matney Gallery, Williamsburg, Virginia, USA (2022); The Protected and the Unprotected, Studio 01, San Diego, California, USA (2020); Displacement, Studio 01, San Diego, California, USA (2019); Containment, Studio 01, San Diego, California, USA (2017); COP21 Conference and Exhibition, Paris, France (2016); Studio 01, San Diego, California, USA (2015); Bandini Gallery, Culver City, California, USA (2008); California Center for the Arts, Escondido, California, USA (2007), accompanied by an exhibition catalog with an introduction by Peter Frank; Found, The Studio, San Diego, California, USA (2002); Compass, site-specific artwork, San Francisco, California, USA (1998); American Artists in Rome, Galleria Spagnola, Rome, Italy (1997); Equilibrium, installation, Rein-Carnation Project, San Diego, California, USA (1996); Matrix, Galleria Spagnola, San Diego, California, USA (1995); Boehm Gallery, Palomar College, San Marcos, California, USA (1994); Mincher/Wilcox Gallery, San Francisco, California, USA (1993); Hidden Agenda, Daniel Saxon Gallery, Los Angeles, California, USA (1990); Mincher/Wilcox Gallery, San Francisco, California, USA (1990, 1989); Pence Gallery, Santa Monica, California, USA (1989, 1987); Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, California, USA (1986); Night Crossing, installation, Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, California, USA (1984); Installations Gallery, San Diego, California, USA (1982); Southern Exposure Gallery, San Francisco, California, USA (1980); and College of Creative Studies, Santa Barbara, California, USA (1978).
Her selected group exhibitions include NOS/NR: Nothing of Nothing, La Jolla, California, USA (2024); Biophilia, The Protected and the Unprotected, online exhibition (Autumn 2022); Time, MOZAIK Philanthropy, online exhibition (2022); On the Peripheral Arteries: You Are Not Relevant (Summer 2015); Text/Context, San Diego Art Institute (SDAI), San Diego, California, USA (2015); San Diego State University, San Diego, California, USA (2007); Boehm Gallery, San Marcos, California, USA (2006); Mesa College, San Diego, California, USA (2001); Jorge Beck Gallery, Stuttgart, Germany (1998); Observations on Death, Galleria Spagnola, San Diego, California, USA (1996); Violencia, Galleria Spagnola, San Diego, California, USA (1995); RIP ARTE ’95, International Exhibition of Contemporary Art, Rome, Italy (1995); Mincher/Wilcox Gallery, San Francisco, California, USA (1990); Quiet, Oakland Museum, Oakland, California, USA (1989); Container, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica, California, USA (1989); Year 2: A Survey, Pence Gallery, Santa Monica, California, USA (1989); Sculptured, Hillwood Art Gallery, Long Island University, New York, USA (1988), subsequently presented at Beaver College Art Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, and the Fine Arts Gallery, University of California, Irvine, California, USA; Sculpture, Jeffrey Linden Gallery, Los Angeles, California, USA (1987); Year 1: A Relevance, Pence Gallery, Santa Monica, California, USA (1987); California State University, Fullerton, California, USA (1986); and Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, California, USA (1984).