September 4 to November 9, 2025
The Clare Gallery’s 2025 season continued with exhibitions based on themes of Mystery, Mysticism, and Meaning. Inner Visions highlights the work of Connecticut artist, Shannon McCarthy. The exhibition included paintings, drawings, and a large-scale visual timeline that included notations, collage and sketches to explore the mystery of meaning in “seeing and knowing” by Leonardo da Vinci, Joan of Arc and the Christian Saints.
Artist Talk and Reception: Saturday, September 20, 5-7:30 p.m.
Virtual Panel Discussion: Monday, September 29, 7-8:30 p.m.
Panelists included the artist; a New Zealand poet and editor of Kokako, Graham Bates; and moderator, Nancy Wynn.
McCarthy has studied Western Civilization’s Enlightenment period and acknowledges the benefits of reason and logic—though admits there are constraints. For McCarthy, “psychic aptitude, extrasensory perception, intuition and the heart” are also ways of knowing worthy of examination. Since childhood, and after a car accident in college that left her with a diagnosis of temporal lobe epilepsy, McCarthy has had visions that “have shown me the Light and the Darkness, and beings who transit the unseen worlds.” Her work expresses the “soft edges” between what she sees as her gift and what might be a result of her disease.
McCarthy’s works are painted on wooden board—each layer of paint applied as in the atelier. This type of layering builds translucence, with depth and beauty of color and texture. The oil paintings may be seen as heavenly in their medium. As McCarthy explains, her goal is “to create work which benevolently prepares the soul for its successful passage to heaven.”
As inspiration for the large-scale timeline, McCarthy found two old books—one on Joan of Arc, the other on Leonardo da Vinci. Through her study of their stories, as well as those of the Saints, McCarthy investigated “in picture” how their stories may be intertwined.
Shannon McCarthy has a B.S. in Linguistics and Classical Studies from the University of Florida. She was taught to paint as a child by her grandmother, a student of Allan Freelon. She studied Visionary Art with Alex Grey; Classical Realism at the Wakeen Atelier in Somers, CT; and atmosphere study in Florence, Italy. McCarthy is an oil painter; the illustrator for a children’s book, Zoa and the Fawn, by Jane Ashworth; and her work was published in Kokako, a New Zealand Japanese poetry magazine. She has exhibited in various galleries in Connecticut, her work was exhibited in “Out of the Blue” in Newcastle, England, and her Roses Collection is permanently installed at the Domestic Monastery in Avon, CT. Visit shannonmccarthy.com for more information.
