Press
“Shannon Faseler replicated scores of mold fungi in paint. Even the wall pattern on which the stuff has sprouted has been hand-painted. ‘In decay, there is often also striking beauty that will challenge perception of what is accepted as such,’ she explained.”
— Laguna Beach Independent
“Inspired by post-Hurricane Katrina images, Shannon Hayes Faseler designed Aesthetics of Decay, in which she paints faux mold atop a playful Toile Wall pattern, hoping to convert the moldy images into ‘abstract, colorful patterns’ in the eyes of her viewers.”
— Laguna Beach Coastline Pilot
“Shannon Faseler, who teaches art at Santa Ana College and Irvine Valley College, combines classic, 18th century patterns with images from Hurricane Katrina to create images that challenge our ideas of what is considered beautiful.”
“I liked Shannon Hayes Faseler’s clever Aesthetics of Decay, Walls, Laguna Art Museum. Her painted toile design features couples dancing gaily, swinging on tree branches or listening to music, menaced by a stylized black mold. To add to the cleverness, there’s wood molding below the “wallpaper” and the title of the two framed oil paintings are blunt reminders that what we’re looking at will all pass with time.”
“The gallery director and art instructor at Irvine Valley College has built a body of work on the “aesthetics of decay”– as she says. ‘I strive to change the viewer’s perception of the physical world.’
Faseler started by researching toile wallpaper patterns found in the older homes of wealthy people. She painted a trompe l’oeil toile pattern in acrylics, and used oil paints to render the mold. Faseler says she was struck by the images of mold infested houses in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
‘I began an investigation of household and food mold. I now use oil-glazing techniques to render highly detailed paintings of food that I have let mold. In the food images, the original subject has been completely transformed and is unrecognizable and abstract.’ ”
— Orange Coast