A careful survey of Aaron’s work, reveals an alternative strategy for getting to the heart of the matter. A series of paintings, sculptures and hybrids dispenses with bold imagery in favor of expressionistic directions. These works, though more abstract, are no less powerful at invoking emotions and pointing to a spiritual potential. Boldness and grit are translated in color, gesture and form. Religion, Star Wars, gender identity, the immigration debate and classical mythology are all addressed and attended. No less daring than his more graphic works, these paintings and sculptures challenge us to experience and embrace the messy hybridity of life and of our constructed realities.

Aaron Sheppard has most recently performed in the Joshua Treenial (2019, 2017, 2015) as well as in the third edition of Bearded and Shucked, an Annual Mermaid Parade which he instigated in Joshua Tree, California. Last year, he was in residence at the Palo Verde Arts Center, and performed DICHOTOMOUS IMAGINARIUM at Ge-Shuku, Kanazawa, Japan. Aaron is a recipient of the Peter S. Reed Foundation Achievement Award. He has had solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna, Austria, Volume 1E Brooklyn, New York, and galleries in Tokyo, Beijing, London, Las Vegas and Washington DC. Sheppard  performed in “Conceptualizing the Body: Gaze, Masquerade, and Spectacle“, at SUNY College in Old Westbury, New York, the Fringe Festival in Australia, and shown video in, Maid in China(town), Chinese Biennale, Ku Art Center, Beijing China. His work has been written about in BOMB magazine, Artillery, The Huffington Post, Las Vegas Weekly, among many others.