Shannon Rankin

It’s officially 2011! Since one of my resolutions is to explore the world in various ways, it seemed appropriate to kick off the year’s posts with the work of Shannon Rankin, an artist who creates intriguing dimensional pieces from maps. Her artwork speaks so beautifully to the way in which we perceive nature, geography, and even history through the diagrammatic lens of cartography. Rankin painstakingly twists, folds, paints, cuts, and further manipulates the maps into reorganized landscapes of pattern and texture. I love the simplicity of the pieces, and I so look forward to seeing how her work will continue to evolve.

You can see more of Rankin’s artwork, including installation views of some of these pieces, here on her site. Those of you who are in the vicinity of Dayton, Ohio, should rush to the Robert & Elaine Stein Galleries at Wright University to see her work in the group exhibition Constructed Territory, which is on view until January 9th.

{All images from Shannon Rankin}