Shana Harper

 Artworks

 

Bold black letters in a variety of fonts and sizes that read "Being Normal is Overrated" on a white background        Bold black letters in a variety of fonts and sizes that read "Being An Artist is The Best Feeling in The World" on a white background

First image: Being Normal is Overated, 2017. Printer’s ink on stretched canvas. Courtesy of NIAD Art Center.

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Second image: Being An Artist is The Best Feeling in The World, 2017. Letterpress print. Courtesy of NIAD Art Center.

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About the Artist 

“When I work in the studio, I like to stay in one spot so I can focus. I like to repeat an image; that’s why stencils and printmaking interest me ... Learning printmaking was a challenge over the last decade. I want my art to expand into the world … I want you to know that being an artist is the best feeling in the world.” ―Shana Harper

Shana Harper often works with text and pattern. She experiments widely and her text prints often subvert the messages of those warm, homely signs we see in décor stores. Her wit and sarcasm send out a strong, anti-ableist message emphasizing that people with developmental disabilities still face discrimination and have much to say that is valuable.

Harper has been making art at NIAD for over 10 years. Her work recently featured in The Art of Resilience: Black Artists Surviving and Thriving in The Bay Area at the ACCI Gallery in Berkeley 2020.

NIAD is a progressive art studio for adult artists with developmental disabilities. Sparked by the nationwide deinstitutionalization of disabled people, Florence and Elias Katz, an artist, and a psychologist, founded three Bay Area non-profit art studios―Creative Growth in 1974, NIAD in 1982 (Nurturing Independence through Artistic Development), and Creativity Explored in 1983. These programs often collaborate and share resources, and serve as a model for the field of art and disability worldwide.

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