About

Short Bio

Beth Shadur has exhibited widely in the US and abroad in solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums. She has also completed over 150 murals, and has work included in Twentieth Century Watercolor by Abbeville Press, alongside artists like Picasso and Mondrian.

Statement

The National Park Project, has resulted as a continuation of my works in the Fragility of the Sacred

series, comprising paintings and individual handmade artists' books integrating idea, text and visual images, with the theme of fragility. This theme has been present in my life in many aspects and deserves interpretation and exploration. I am looking at fragility of not only the wider environment, but the fragility of our own lives, both in terms of physical fragility but in terms of emotional fragility so common in our current world situation. As I age, I understand more significantly how fragile our plans are for our futures, and I often use symbolism to explore and portray these ideas.    

My most recent series aspires to explore the National Parks as pristine environments that need to be considered as sacred to protect the land and environment which serves as our nation’s natural legacy. Most importantly, I am reflecting on the impact of climate change, tourism, and man’s use of natural resources on each park; the paintings will reflect these concerns by representing the natural beauty, plants and animals impacted and threatened, and using text to address the fragility of the natural environment there.

Biography

Beth Shadur has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions in the United States and abroad, including at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Drawing Center in NYC. She has created over 150 large public murals as public, private and community art projects in both the United States and Great Britain. She has taught and served as a visiting artist at many colleges and universities and her work appears in many publications, books and catalogues, including Twentieth Century Watercolors, Abbeville Press; Art and Cartography, Art Institute of Chicago.

Shadur has been awarded numerous Ragdale Fellowships and is a Thomas Watson Fellow from Brown University; from 2004-6, she served as Executive Director of ARC Gallery, Chicago. She participated in the Cool Globes Public Art Project in Chicago in 2007, and in 2008, was Artist-in-Residence at the Burren College of Art in Ireland through a Governor’s Award for International Arts Exchange from the Illinois Arts Council. She has been an Artist in Residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts, the Harfnarborg Art Museum in Iceland and in 2024, did a residency at Chateau Orqumaux in Chamont, France. From 2012-2024, she was the Gallery Director at Prairie State College in Illinois, and is an independent curator as well.