Shaun Kardinal is a conceptual artist creating form from repeating parts—one from many, many from one. His cross-disciplinary art practice manifests as altered objects, modular structures, collaborative exhibition platforms, and interactive physical-digital installations.

Born and raised in suburban California, the artist moved to Seattle right out of high school. He began working in the arts a few years after, running a not-for-profit gallery in the frame shop he also managed—where he first exhibited his own photography. In his roles since, as a web developer and graphic designer, he has collaborated with dozens of artists, galleries, and arts orgs.

He is the recipient of two grants from 4Culture, a 2019 Artist Trust GAP Grant. Has served as a member of SOIL artist-run gallery, was an organizational member of Crawl Space Gallery, and co-founded Some Space Gallery. His work has exhibited from Seattle to New York to London and in between.

Hi, I’m Shaun Kardinal, writing to you from my back yard in “Philadelphia” on a warm afternoon one “Sunday, June 4, 2023.” There you are in another time, peering into these pixels; taking a moment not only to pause with my art, which I truly appreciate, but also to read this text. Commendable.

This work explores visualizations of a noisy, modern mind—mine, really, it’s the one I know best, but I’m hoping you will relate—woven into beatific and devastating photos of the world we share. These images were found in books, postcards, and street-side free piles of Baltimore and Philadelphia, the cities I’ve called home for the past few years, and repurposed as canvases for embroidered patterns and the building blocks of the piece itself. Some were installed in windows for several months beforehand, allowing colors to fade and shift. This intentional, temporal degradation helps to capture a sense of the pregnant, present moment.

As you consider the intricate interplay of each piece, paradoxes may emerge—clarity is found within interference, colors exist only as we perceive them, and truths lie nestled within contradictions.

There exists a deeply humanistic urge to view what’s to come in this world as an end. But I encourage you to find another vantage. There is hope in our failures, for they provide us with invaluable lessons, shaping our growth and understanding.

This is how we learn

2018 LMR Hotel, Riyadh, Energy series (14 piece commission with Atelier27 Paris)

2018 FB AIR Program,, I (underpinning no. 1) (permanent installation @ Facebook Westlake Seattle)

2015 Slow Year, II (album cover art)

2014 Wishbeard, Ally Sheedy 7″ (album cover art)

2013 Starbucks University Village III Location (permanent installation)

2013 Vaudeville Etiquette, Debutantes EP (album cover art)

2013 Soft Metals, Lenses LP, Tell Me single (album cover art series, music video)

2012 LxWxH Gallery (permanent installation)