October 18 — November 23, 2024 — Edna B. Love Gallery — Fine Arts Center for the New River Valley, Pulaski

Artist and philosopher Katy Shepard, Ph.D (She/They), explores the boundaries of empathy through intuitive abstraction in her series, The Human Experience Project, consisting of large-scale oil mixed-media works. While the paintings in Shepard’s series appear abstract, she describes these works as “hyper-realistic” visual translations of audio data. 

The core of The Human Experience Project is a series of recordings from individuals sharing a significant moment in their lives. Shepard painted each work while listening to the continuous looped recordings, letting the sound and audio quality intuitively guide the brushstrokes. Shepard’s process of intuitively translating audio narratives into visual work offers a compelling investigation into empathy shaped by personal perspective.