Shan Graf – Billings Arts Association

For October and November, 2025, we are featuring Shan Graf of Billings Arts Association.

Artist Statement

I create my artwork as a means of both reflection and escape, constructing spaces where memory, identity, and emotion exist in flux. Working primarily in oil paint, I blend impressionism and realism to explore emotional states through vivid, atmospheric color. My use of saturation heightens memory and abstraction, enabling each piece to transcend fixed narratives.

Influenced by ideas of performative and fluid identity, my work examines the tension between interior and exterior selves. Themes of mental health, personal history, and environment recur throughout my practice, shaped by my upbringing in Montana’s expansive landscape.

Through painterly experimentation and emotional resonance, I aim to create spaces that invite contemplation and connection—works that mirror the shifting nature of self while contributing to a broader conversation about identity, place, and presence within contemporary art.

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Welcome to Sandstone, Shan!