Artists featured in the monthly Member Spotlight are selected from our online Members' Gallery. If you wish to be considered for the Spotlight in the future, send us a note! This month we are pleased to feature Shawn Saumell in conversation with TPS Executive Director Chris Ireland. You can see Shawn's work in the upcoming Big Picture exhibition at the Arlington Museum of Art.
Shawn Saumell - August 2026
What artist or project that you saw early on changed the way you see or photograph the world?
When I first began exhibiting around 2000, I was making work largely through intuition. I wasn't yet well versed in the history of photography, yet people would often tell me that my work reminded them of artists such as Man Ray, Alfred Stieglitz, Harry Callahan, Adam Fuss, and others. Those comments sent me on an unexpected journey of discovery. It felt as though I was finding connections across time— artists I had never studied but with whom I seemed to share a spirit of experimentation and a particular way of seeing.
Initially, I was almost hesitant to study too much photography. I worried that immersing myself in the work of others might lead me to unconsciously imitate them. I believed that if I worked in something of a vacuum, my photographs would remain entirely my own. Over time, however, I realized that originality isn't created through isolation. It's created through understanding what has come before while allowing your own experiences, questions, and perspective to shape the work.
The first photographer whose work consciously expanded my understanding of the medium was Loretta Lux. Her photographs exist in a space where photography and painting seem almost inseparable. They demonstrated that a camera could function not only as a documentary tool, but also as a deeply expressive artistic medium capable of conveying memory, imagination, and psychological space. That realization gave me permission to push photography beyond conventional expectations.
Today I'm inspired by a wide range of artists, both historical and contemporary, whose work influences everything from process and materials to color, philosophy, and exhibition design. More than any single aesthetic influence, however, they've reinforced my belief that the goal isn't to replicate what others have done, but to contribute an authentic voice to the ongoing conversation of photography.
Do you usually begin with a concept, or do the photographs reveal the concept as you work?
For me, it's very much a conversation between the two.
My work usually begins with something intangible—a thought, a feeling, a question, or simply a voice that has something it wants to say. That initial spark gradually develops into a concept during what I think of as an incubation period of reflection. Sometimes I'll make sketches, but more often the work continues to evolve mentally as I reflect on it over days, weeks, or even months.
Once that foundation feels established, I begin photographing, gathering visual material, and experimenting. That's when the photographs begin talking back. The original idea isn't abandoned, but it often evolves as unexpected relationships, compositions, and possibilities emerge through the making process.
I think of image-making as a balance between intention and discovery. There is enough structure to give the work direction, but enough openness to allow intuition, experimentation, and even surprise to shape the final piece.
Individual works often become conversations with one another. Some remain standalone images, while others grow into larger bodies of work. In that way, each piece is informed by those that came before it while simultaneously influencing those that follow. The work evolves much like a living ecosystem, where each image contributes to a broader visual and conceptual dialogue.
For me, photography isn't simply a means of recording the world—it is a way of thinking through it.
Your image "Can't Stop, Won't Stop (featured in our current Big Picture exhibition)", and the series Paradise Still Lost, examine constructed landscapes that explore humanity's relationship with the natural world. How did this series come about?
I think the origins of Paradise Still Lost reach back to my childhood.
When I was young, electrical transmission towers didn't simply look like infrastructure—they looked like enormous robotic monsters standing in the landscape. I found them both fascinating and unsettling. That sense of curiosity never really left me.
Years later, as I became a photographer, I found myself constantly working around those same power lines. At first they felt like obstacles that interrupted otherwise beautiful landscapes. But eventually I realized they weren't intrusions into the landscape—they had become part of the landscape. Like so much of our built environment, they had become almost invisible through familiarity.
That realization changed the direction of my work. Rather than trying to avoid these structures, I became interested in drawing attention to them. I wanted viewers to pause and reconsider the systems we've accepted as ordinary: power generation, industry, agriculture, transportation, development, and consumption. Many of these systems have improved our lives in remarkable ways, yet they also carry environmental, social, and aesthetic consequences that often fade into the background of everyday life.
Having lived in rural communities, urban environments, and suburbs, while also traveling internationally, I've watched landscapes continually transform. Some places seem untouched by time, while others are reshaped almost beyond recognition. Those experiences have led me to ask what our relationship with the landscape might look like if technology, infrastructure, and development could evolve in ways that are cleaner, more sustainable, and more thoughtfully integrated with the natural world.
Ultimately, Paradise Still Lost isn't about condemning human progress. It's about encouraging viewers to notice what has become hidden in plain sight and to ask whether the landscapes we've created reflect the future we truly want to build.
Your titles often reference songs or phrases associated with music. What are you listening to while you work?
I'm impressed you picked up on that because music has quietly been woven into my practice for a very long time.
For my first solo exhibition in 2002, Peaces of Mind, I even borrowed a lyric from Maynard James Keenan as the exhibition's opening quotation: "I'd trade it all... for just a little peace of mind." At the time, I also asked the gallery director to play a CD I had burned of the music I listened to while creating the work. I wanted visitors to experience the same atmosphere that surrounded the pieces in the studio.
Music still plays an important role in my process. I usually choose music that matches the emotional tone or energy of the work I'm creating, although occasionally it nudges the work in unexpected directions. Sometimes a title comes directly from a song I was listening to, while other times the finished image seems to call a particular song or lyric to mind. Those musical references become another layer of meaning—sometimes obvious, sometimes hidden.
Over the years, something interesting has happened. Rather than trying to guide viewers through music, I've learned to trust the work itself. Complete strangers have stood in front of a photograph and told me that it reminded them of a particular song, artist, or band. More often than not, it turns out to be music I was actually listening to while making the piece. Those moments have always fascinated me because they suggest that music and images communicate through similar emotional frequencies.
I don't know whether music creates visual experiences or visual experiences create music. I suspect the relationship works both ways. For me, they're simply two different languages trying to express the same human experience.
In your statement you ask, "What is to become of us and might we learn our individual purposes, as well as our collective purpose? How may we evolve, and revolve?" Have you received any insight on how to answer this question through your work?
That question continues to evolve alongside the work, and I don't believe there is a definitive answer. If anything, creating Paradise Still Lost has taught me that the value often lies less in finding answers than in asking meaningful questions.
On an individual level, I believe each person has to discover their own sense of purpose. History reminds us that human progress is never inevitable. Some people question convention and imagine new possibilities, while others preserve traditions and existing systems. Both have shaped human history, and meaningful transformation rarely happens all at once.
Collectively, I think change often begins with awareness. Sometimes it takes an entire community working together; other times, a single idea or individual becomes the spark that gradually reshapes how people think. Art has a unique ability to kindle those moments—not by prescribing solutions, but by inviting reflection, conversation, and curiosity.
I've come to believe that the strength of a question is that it asks something of the viewer. The power isn't simply in the questioning; it's in what the questioning makes possible.
Rather than presenting a conclusion, it creates space for dialogue and the possibility of new perspectives. If a work of art encourages someone to pause, notice something that had become hidden in plain sight, or engage in a conversation they otherwise wouldn't have had, then I believe the work has already begun to do its job.
Ultimately, only time will reveal how we evolve as individuals and as a society. My hope is simply to contribute to that ongoing conversation. I don't expect my work to provide answers. I hope it encourages people to ask questions, engage in meaningful conversations, and imagine possibilities they may not have considered before.
You place importance on materials and texture in exhibiting your work, often printing images on unique surfaces like wood and sandpaper. Can you talk about how you came to be inspired to mix photography with sculptural processes?
The short answer is: form and content. I think carefully about how a work is presented because the material should contribute to the meaning of the image, not simply support it.
Early in my career, I worked almost exclusively with film and alternative photographic processes. I fell in love with every aspect of photography—from the initial idea to the solitude of the darkroom, the chemistry, and the endless opportunities for experimentation. Processes such as solvent transfers, Polaroid transfers, silver emulsion lifts, and Fuji transfers taught me something important: photographs weren't confined to paper. They could exist on wood, glass, metal, stone, plastic, tree bark, and countless other surfaces.
That realization fundamentally changed the way I thought about photography.
I never wanted paper to become photography’s prison.
Over time, my experimentation became more intentional. Rather than asking, "What unusual material can I print on?" I began asking, "What material best completes this particular work?" Sometimes the surface becomes an extension of the concept. The physical qualities of the material—its texture, color, weight, or imperfections—can change the way the image is experienced, just as the image can transform the way we perceive the material.
Some materials are surprisingly cooperative, while others require tremendous patience. For my portfolio, “Deserted,” it explores the desertification phenomenon of our planet. Sandpaper has probably been the most technically demanding. It was never designed to move through an inkjet printer, and producing archival-quality prints required a great deal of experimentation and risk. At one point, a curled edge nearly struck the print head of a large-format printer, effectively ending that edition. Even so, I don't view those challenges as obstacles so much as part of the creative process. Experimentation has always been one of the ways I discover new possibilities for the medium.
Ultimately, I'm interested in expanding our expectations of what a photograph can be. For me, the image doesn't end at its edges. The object itself—the material, its surface, and its physical presence—becomes part of the artwork's voice.
Living and working in Texas has profoundly shaped not only my perspective as an artist, but also the imagery, subjects, and ideas that continue to appear throughout my work. Whether we realize it or not, we are all shaped by the environments we inhabit.
I've always felt a strong connection to the natural world. While photographing landscapes across Texas, I found myself collecting small objects that had been discarded by nature—stones, branches, seed pods, leaves, and other fragments I encountered while walking. At first, they simply accumulated on my dresser. Eventually those small collections grew into boxes. I wasn't consciously collecting them for a particular purpose; I was simply drawn to them.
Over time those collections began finding their way into my artwork. I started constructing small landscape maquettes in the studio using actual fragments gathered from Texas. These imagined worlds were fictional landscapes built from authentic pieces of real ones.
Years later, my process gradually inverted. Rather than constructing physical landscapes from collected natural materials, I began roaming across Texas collecting photographs of actual places and then digitally constructing fictional landscapes from those images. Looking back, the progression feels like a kind of Möbius strip—the physical world becoming imagined, and the imagined world continually returning to the physical. That continual movement between observation and invention has become one of the defining rhythms of my practice.
Texas has influenced my work environmentally, culturally, and visually, but perhaps most importantly, it has taught me that place is never simply a backdrop. It becomes part of how we see, think, remember, and ultimately create. In many ways, Texas hasn't just been the setting for my work; it has become part of the material from which the work itself is made.
How does teaching inform your work? What challenges do you see students face when starting photography that have made you rethink your approach?
My artistic practice has certainly informed my teaching, but over time I've realized that teaching has also deepened my understanding of why I make art. The two have become inseparable. They continually inform one another.
Because I've spent decades navigating many of the same frustrations my students encounter, I often recognize their challenges before they do. Whether it's technical obstacles, creative uncertainty, or simply not knowing where to begin, I can usually relate because I've been there myself. That shared experience allows me to teach from empathy rather than instruction alone.
I'm also constantly learning as an educator. Every semester I listen carefully to my students, make notes, refine assignments, and rethink how I communicate ideas. In many ways, the way I speak to students parallels the way my artwork speaks to viewers. Both invite curiosity rather than simply providing answers.
Beginning photography students often struggle with exposure and understanding the relationship between the camera's settings. Every decision influences the final image, just as every decision we make influences the people and world around us. More advanced students usually face a different challenge. They understand how to operate the camera, but they begin searching for something much more difficult: their own voice.
Those conversations are some of my favorite moments as a teacher. At that point, photography becomes about much more than making pictures. It becomes a process of self-discovery. My role isn't to tell students what their work should look like, but to help them recognize what they already have to say. Photography simply becomes one of the languages through which they explore, discover, and express that journey.
What current project(s) are you working on?
I'm almost always juggling several projects at once. If you look across my different bodies of work, you'll find some that are quiet and minimal alongside others that are vibrant and hyperreal. That balance feels very natural to me because it's also how I think and experience the world. One project often provides the creative counterpoint to another.
This year I've found myself returning to my alternative process roots. I've been experimenting with cyanotype toning, Polaroid mirroring, anthotypes, skateboard decks, embellished trading cards, and several other material explorations that remind me why I fell in love with photography in the first place. I still enjoy following unexpected ideas simply to discover where they lead.
My projects are a bit like cooking popcorn. Some pop almost immediately and are ready to share, while others sit quietly on the heat for years before they're ready. Right now I have several bodies of work slowly developing, including one involving glass and optical "rabbit holes," another exploring mixed media on fabric, and another centered around platinum prints and anthotypes. In many ways, I probably have more work that the public hasn't seen than work that it has.
Lately I've been making a conscious effort to devote more time to completing those projects and sharing them more consistently, both through exhibitions and on social media.
That said, the project that continues to demand the greatest share of my attention is Paradise Still Lost. What began years ago as Paradise Lost, and later evolved into Paradise Remixed, has become an ongoing conversation rather than a finite series. It's an incredibly demanding body of work, but more pieces keep calling me, and I feel compelled to answer them. At this point, I no longer think of Paradise Still Lost as a project with an ending. It's a place I continue to return to whenever another question reveals itself.
Who would you like to see jury a TPS show?
That's a wonderfully difficult question because there are so many photographers, curators, educators, and historians whose perspectives I admire. Rather than hoping for one particular juror, I enjoy seeing exhibitions shaped by people whose expertise aligns naturally with the exhibition's theme. A thoughtful pairing between juror and concept often produces the most memorable exhibitions.
For example, Jason Lee would bring a unique perspective to a film photography exhibition, while Charles Wylie has such a remarkable curatorial vision that I'd be excited to see almost any exhibition he organized. Marilyn Waligore would be a fantastic choice for an exhibition exploring materiality and photographic process. Lisa Volpe has an exceptionally discerning eye, and I imagine any exhibition she juried would be visually and conceptually compelling. Susan kae Grant would be a wonderful fit for themes surrounding mystery, narrative, and the handmade image, while Leigh Merrill could bring exciting insight to an exhibition centered on false-color photography. Jessica S. McDonald is another curator and historian whose depth of knowledge and thoughtful perspective would make any exhibition stronger.
The list could easily continue well into the night. One of the strengths of the photographic community is the incredible diversity of voices shaping it today, and I think TPS is uniquely positioned to continue inviting those voices to create fresh conversations through future exhibitions. One of the things I appreciate most about TPS is its willingness to continually introduce photographers to new voices and new ways of seeing. I hope that spirit of curiosity continues to guide future exhibitions.
(Editor's Note: If any of these photographers are interested in jurying a TPS Exhibition and are reading this, please reach out! :))
Curiosity has always been my medium. Photography is simply one of the ways I express it.
About Shawn....
Shawn Saumell was artist in New York and currently lives and works in Dallas. He received an MFA from Lesley University College of Arts and Design fka The Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University, BFA from Texas Woman’s University, magna cum laude, and an AA from Collin College, cum laude.
Saumell's work has been featured in over 250 exhibitions worldwide and has won many international awards including, but not limited to:"First Place," "Director's Choice," "Photographer of the Year," "Best of Biennial," "100 Best International," "Top 50 MFA Painters in America," "Top 25 International Fine Artists," and "Best of Show."
He has had a recent solo exhibition at the Mesquite Arts Center, Mesquite, TX [2024] and has another solo scheduled for the Martin Museum of Art, Waco, TX [2027]; and recent juried exhibitions at FotoFest, Baytown, TX [2026]; and the Limner Gallery, Hudson, NY [2024] ; as well as recent group exhibitions at New Media Contemporary, Dallas, TX [2025]; LACDA, Los Angeles, CA [2025]; MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA [2024]; and Rochester Contemporary Art Center, Rochester, NY [2024].
See Shawn's website for more images...