By Brittany Knupper
“For me, existence is about creating, exploration, movement, and attuning myself to energies and frequencies,” says Shauna Lan La. Attuning herself to frequencies has been a lifelong pursuit.
Born in Mississippi, La traveled across the United States as a radio frequency engineer before a narrow miss with Hurricane Katrina prompted her to pursue art full time.
La creates large-scale abstract paintings, primarily using the color white, with subtle hints of charcoal or occasional bursts of color. She renders her work mainly in acrylic paint, often reinforcing it with mediums and cement. Heavy body paints appeal to her for their sculptural qualities. White draws attention to the peaks, waves, and lines of the paint.
“In my more minimalist work, by taking away superfluous color, one can focus solely on the physical realization of each intention,” La writes. “Just like our radiating fields of energy affect the universe, the brushstrokes are not flat or lifeless.”
Each stroke moves and shapes its surroundings, pushing and merging within space. She describes the impressions left behind as reminders of the power of thought, energy, and intention.
La asks viewers to focus on what is normally hidden.
These include the invisible frequencies that drive a painting, an emotion, or a thought. Works such as Plush and Forgive appear entirely white, with sculpted lines of paint driving their emotional impact. Plush is composed of soft, rounded curves. Forgive is dominated by strong horizontal lines across the center of the canvas, evoking a barrier and the difficulty of forgiveness.When color appears, as in Composition of a Soul, it feels intense and almost violent, resembling blood splatter. The surrounding white forces attention onto the shape and nature of the reds, blues, and blacks it contains.
“My process involves observing physical characteristics such as colors, sensations, tastes and smells as well as occurrences that are not necessarily explainable in conventional ways like lucid dreaming or meditation,” La explains. These elements blend together to inspire her work. Her approach centers on deconstructing traditions and discovering new perspectives.
While La’s paintings are inherently sculptural, she also creates physical sculptures. For the exhibition Déypaser, she produced rough, skeletal clay sculptures—stark white with jagged edges, resembling bones or broken shells bleached by the sun. One piece, Pyre, is tinged with charcoal along its edges, giving it a more ominous tone, as if the remains of a ritual or sacrifice have been uncovered.
La’s process continues to evolve with each series. “In one series, I use paint and collage elements to build rough surfaces full of texture, adding and stripping away layers using palette knives to reveal prior layers underneath mostly white canvases,” she explains. Charcoal and paint complete the works. The layered surfaces represent limited perceptions of reality, while the charcoal lines function as cryptic messages. The layers beneath symbolize the unknown—things only experienced in fragments and open to reflection.
Throughout her work, La remains focused on the interior, the hidden, and the invisible—the frequencies that connect people but remain unseen. From radio waves to the unconscious and the unseen ties that bind, her work encourages viewers to look deeper and reflect inward.
La is now expanding her practice into large-scale multimedia installations. She is creating expansive versions of her white, textured paintings for a future solo exhibition titled Energy. She is also working on an eight-foot-tall plaster-on-steel sculpture for an installation titled Consumption. The figure, nicknamed The Mouth, has no eyes or ears and stands with its head raised and mouth open toward the ceiling. The installation includes a 1,500-pound pile of sugar that emits carbon snakes. “The purpose of this installation is to visually represent the toxic condition of a society sickened by consumerism,” La states.
In addition, La plans to open a studio and gallery space in Los Angeles. She envisions the space as a salon where people from diverse backgrounds—artists, engineers, farmers, and others—can gather to discuss environmental and philosophical challenges and inspire creative thinking. Her work asks whether these hidden frequencies can bring people together and encourage new ways of seeing the world.
Shauna Lan La presents her work at Artspace Warehouse in Los Angeles, will soon show at SHAUNA LAN LA STUDIO + GALLERY, and shares it online at shaunalanla.com.
