Shannon Taylor is a painter, illustrator, and educator based out of Oakland, California. She is a professor in the Illustration Program at the California College of the Arts, and has held the position of Director of Art and Restoration at Children’s Fairyland in Oakland since 2012. Taylor has been working in watercolor since childhood, learning the skill from her Italian grandmother. A highly prolific artist, Taylor has developed a style of painting that is distinctly her own, utilizing rich colors, layers of blending, dry-brushing, and pattern work, Taylor is constantly pushing and expanding on the possibilities of the medium. Often conjuring the decorative and figurative qualities of the pre-raphaelite and aesthetic movements, Taylor’s work is an exploration of beauty. In her paintings, heavy indigo skies are filled with stars, and flowers bloom from the backs of languid, lovely women; the world that Taylor has made is gilt, prismatic, and lovingly wrought.