By
Hana Shoup
Piece description from the artist
I visited Japan last October and visited many Buddhist temples. I was struck by the massive wooden sculptures of Nio. Nio are wrath-filled and muscular guardians of the Buddha which stand at the entrance of many Buddhist temples in East Asia. They often take the form of frightening wrestler-like statues. I was captivated by their Hellenistic and dynamic forms. They are formidable temple guardians, indeed!
I was born in the small town of Brenham, Texas. I drew constantly all through childhood. Animals were my first models, both real (my menagerie of pets) and fantastic (dragons and such). Despite this obsession with drawing, I did not pursue art as a career until college. During my undergraduate education, I studied drawing, painting, printmaking, and art history. I absorbed these subjects like a sponge, culminating in a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a painting concentration from Baylor University. I traveled abroad, and lived for five months in Florence, Italy. There I took classes in cooking, Italian, and Renaissance art. Upon my return the States, I dove into art again. I attended an intensive drawing “marathon” at the New York Studio School. I then moved to Baltimore. I was a Texas girl eager to see the East Coast and to attend MICA as a Post-Baccalaureate student. After that, I moved to Houston, TX, to earn my Master of Fine Arts from the University of Houston. I currently live in Denver.
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