Dallas-based artist Jay Shinn recognizes that “early experiences and interests circle back around and play an important part of who we are as adults, even more so through the art we make.” Shinn embraces early artistic influences of mentors, Op Art and Geometric Abstraction artists, construction, and neon signage in his current work. The fascination and incorporation of neon light, including its optical effects on the space and objects around it, guides Shinn in his creations.

These creations include constructed sculptural objects as well as shaped canvases and panels with painted surface treatments. Shinn’s incorporation of neon lights emphasizes the visual impact of light, pigment, and design. Works on paper hint of the gradations that often occur with an artificial light source that simultaneously distorts, contradicts, and enhances a physical form.

Shinn describes his installation within Room With a View as “the juxtaposition of a jail cell to a hotel room, so similar, yet so different. A view is important to me, either a view that inspires or simply a lifeline to the outside world. The many windows in the cells provided a place for the eyes and minds of those incarcerated to wander into new thoughts. I hope that now with the art inside these cells, the visitor has another view that allows their mind and senses to travel to a new place.”

The 2024 Cell Series of exhibitions is generously supported by National Endowment for the Arts, Paula & Parker Jameson, and the McGinnis Family Fund of Communities Foundation of Texas, with additional funding from Jay & Barbra Clack, Kathy Webster in memory of Charles H. Webster, and Dr. Larry Wolz.  

Patrick Kelly, OJAC Director and Curator, interview with artist Jay Shinn (August 2024)

PK: I understand you grew up in the southern part of Arkansas. Would you tell me a little about that and if anything from that time or place still informs your work?

JS: I grew up in a small college town, Magnolia in Southwest Arkansas. I started taking children's art classes at "Marjorie's House of Artists" when I was eight years old. I remember my first official art class was when a circus was in town. We went to a vacant field with our easels and I painted a painting of big striped circus tents. I had that painting for a long time. Drippy poster paint on paper. I knew that first day I wanted to be an artist. Marjorie attended the Art Institute of Chicago and was an excellent children’s teacher. She was encouraging and exposed her students to art in the broader sense. I went from Marjorie’s to auditing art classes at Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia in the 9th grade. Ever since hearing Marjorie’s art school stories as a kid I knew I wanted to head to the Kansas City Art Institute as soon as I finished high school.

I was fortunate being from a town of 12,000 that at least had a university to keep things interesting. My father was a builder, and besides art lessons my summers were spent on hotel construction sites from an early age. Always a maker of things, growing up around construction was a confidence builder as to how things can be done. It also pressed upon me how to develop an idea into a reality, and a love for realizing an idea into large scale.

PK: Your descriptive “striped circus tent,” coupled with your exposure to constructing things, jumped out at me. Can you think of early work(s) you created or incidents that were pivotal in guiding the work you do now? Any eureka moment or series of conscious observations?

I started as a child artist being satisfied working with representation and observation. That was rewarding for me to draw or paint something that I could make work and it would be recognizable. Then, as a teenager I was very drawn to op art. In a way I felt like it was accomplishing the same thing representationally, but with fewer elements. I had to do a report in my 9th grade French class about something about French culture. I chose Victor Vasarely. That report helped lead me into geometric abstraction. 

I also had a fascination with lighted signage. My father was building motels in the 60s and 70s and I was always trying my hand at drawing signs for the roadside motels and the even more fun restaurant signage. This was when I took notice of neon. I was thinking about the relay lighting and back lit script of the iconic Holiday Inn signage back in the day. This carried through into my own art work. In high school I made shaped stretched canvases. I even often incorporated built-in light bulbs behind painted Plexiglas into the paintings. I never worked with electric lights again until I did a four-month residency in Berlin in 2010. Spending more time in Europe I became interested in the work of the French artist Françoise Morellet's neon work. I was especially drawn to the large-scale architectural installations on buildings in Berlin and Paris. Morellet's use of warm and cool whites definitely had a profound influence on several of the works here at the OJAC.

Now in my mid 60s it is evident how those early experiences and interests circle back around and play an important part of who we are as adults, even more so through the art we make.

PK: So, I know you work with constructed objects, shaped canvas/panels, and pigment on paper. How does a new work manifest itself…basically what I’m asking is, do you have a mental vision of a series or discrete object that you work through or is a new work inspired by something you are currently working on or just completed? Or perhaps, it’s not as simple as that?

JS: The work evolves from all the above, as you mentioned. I do work through an idea typically in a series of works. It is best when one piece leads to the next. I like to work with an idea until it is exhausted.

Those series are usually started with drawings. I do a lot of old school mechanical drawings on graph and tracing paper. Over the last few years, I am also drawing on the computer in black and white. Color decisions are almost always made in front of the actual work. I do set up certain limitations for myself when working through a series. These limitations act as guidelines for my intuition to work within.

PK: I’ll mention your Pool Party series—one shape with countless and unrepeated painted patterns all shown in a grid. Do you see this approach as a challenge or a self-imposed means of restraint? 

JS: You know, for a while I thought the parameters of painting were too restrictive for me. I tried to work outside that box, which led me into creating more installation, sculptural, and light-based work. Now I think the parameters that are set forth by painting are what interest me. There is a challenge in pushing the boundaries of working with these somewhat established guidelines and a history of painting that is very rewarding to me. Working with new materials, or painting, are just another way of going from point A to Z and in the end reaching the same desired or similar statement.

Interesting you mention the Pool Party series. It definitely presented both a challenge and a self-imposed means of restraint. I set guidelines at the start of that group not knowing where it would end: each panel would be the same size and shape; I would not use the same color twice; and I would keep painting these until I exhausted the idea. In all, I made just over 150 of these paintings. They grew together organically and worked visually in various groups creating a unique "party" in each grouping. Working in a series has been healthy for me as it makes me work through an idea.

PK: Your Cell Series exhibition is titled Room With a View and utilizes two of the historic jail cells and another more traditional white cube space within the museum. Can you briefly talk about the decisions you made about which works were selected or created for each? (Knowing at this point things may change once you begin installing the works.)

JS: All the works in the exhibit are based on neon light, using actual neon and a variety of other mediums. The two upstairs jail cells each have neon works. One room with only warm and cool white neon and the other with colored neon. In a way the light emanating from the room with the white light relates to the light of night and the colored neon combined represents the light of day. Also, a group of small reflective gouache paintings on mylar are meant to interact and play off the neon. The color in the paintings as a result of the mylar, changes somewhat as the viewer moves around in the space. The images are also inspired by the way the angular neon forms wrap around their supporting dominant shapes.

The gallery downstairs has an early large neon work. There is a suite of lithographs and two other prints made from the exposure of neon light. Driven by an ongoing interest in the gradients of light caused by the neon are the recent five paintings on paper that also speak to the rhythmic circular movement of the other works in this gallery.

The title, Room With a View, came from several different thoughts. The juxtaposition of a jail cell to a hotel room—so similar, yet so different. A view is important to me, either a view that inspires or simply a lifeline to the outside world. The many windows in the cells provided a place for the eyes and minds of those incarcerated to wander into new thoughts. I hope that now with the art inside these cells, the visitor has another view that allows their mind and senses to travel to a new place.