'Reflection' art exhibit presentation Thursday, March 08, 2018
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM

Midland College McCormick Gallery invites you to a FREE event:  Lunch reception and viewing of the gallery's latest exhibit "Reflection" featuring works by Shannon Cannings.  

The complimentary lunch will be served from 12:00 noon-1:00 p.m. followed by an artist talk from 1:00-2:00 p.m.  "Reflection" includes a series of oil paintings and colored pencil drawings each depicting plastic toy guns seated in a field of crinkled mirrored Mylar.  Though the work is very realistic, the reflected guns become visually busy, sometimes confusing and quite overwhelming.  The audience has to interpret what they are seeing, and in that time of reflection, they must then evaluate how they feel about them.  

Shannon Cannings teaches in the art department at Texas Tech University.  Her work has been exhibited internationally in solo and group exhibitions.  

The exhibit hangs in the Midland College Allison Fine Arts Building through April 13.

Artist Statement

For some time I have been interested in Americana, consumerism, and the plastic veneer that we use to gloss over the surface of things to protect as well as enhance appearance.

My most recent subject matter, toy guns, is more apparently subversive than my past work. As an artist and a consumer, I am drawn to the bright colors and thrilling packaging. I try to make these objects appealing and strong, so that the viewer is as absorbed by the formal beauty of the objects as I am. I have as much connection to the shiny translucent plastic as I do to the childhood nostalgia that they evoke. But I have to ask myself if this is glorifying violence and what lessons are learned from gun play (not gunplay). Does this childhood toy gun fun introduce us to a tolerance of violent language and behavior as adults? Or is it just harmless fun? Names like “Trigger Happy”, “Friendly Fire”, and “Gunplay” diminish the violence of the act that they are meant to describe, making these ideas more palatable.

It is impossible to ignore the current media battle between unbridled gun culture and control. Marketing lulls us into states of unquestioning acceptance of gun culture and marketing as truth. I hope to engage viewers to question with me, and explore their own relationships with guns and gun culture and how they relate to play.