The Collection

Shannon T. Lewis is a Canadian artist of Caribbean descent whose surrealist, assemblage-driven practice reconfigures human forms and the spaces they occupy. Working primarily in painting, she layers fragmented figures, architectural motifs, and ornate iconography to examine the intersections of Blackness, femininity, and body politics. Her collaged and interlaced limbs often evoke gestures of mobility, intimacy, and transformation, while haunting portraits drawn from archival and personal sources blur the boundaries between past and present. Through these complex, dreamlike compositions, Lewis offers a vision of freedom that interrogates marginalized identities and imagines alternative futures.

Her practice is equally informed by performance and installation, with works that immerse viewers in uncanny spaces where bodies shift in and out of belonging. By weaving together surreal imagery, cultural references, and architectural detail, Lewis creates a narrative world that challenges histories of race, gender, class, and migration.

Lewis has exhibited in Canada, the United States, Trinidad, Switzerland, England, and Germany. She received a BA from OCAD University in Toronto and an MFA from Goldsmiths, University of London. In 2025, she was invited as guest professor at the Universität der Künste, Berlin, where she taught the painting course Dramaturgy of the Object.