BIOGRAPHY

Natasha Shoro is a contemporary visual artist based In Southern California. Born in Ithaca, New York to Pakistani parents.

Shoro's genres include abstract mixed media paintings to site specific installations to address topics from her life experiences of being a woman with multi-cultural influences. She finds inspiration from her travels and is inspired by the aerial cartographies in nature.

Natasha spent the first twelve years of her life travelling extensively as her father worked in the hotel management business. Living in the United States, Africa, Europe and Pakistan exposed Natasha to a wide range of languages and culture. This rich overlap of experience has had a profound influence on Natasha’s art making. Throughout her schooling both in the United States and abroad, Natasha has continued to be recognized and awarded for her accomplishments in fine art, experimenting with a variety of mediums.

Graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design with honors and distinction from Iowa State University, Natasha spent her undergraduate years developing a body of work on paper and canvas using translucent acrylic washes inspired by Abstract Expressionism. Receiving two grants, one for her honors project Riding the Waves and the other for a Focus Grant Painting on Fabrics, enabled Natasha to explore various processes. Natasha competed in a regional art competition at the Brunnier Gallery and Museum in Ames, Iowa were her Ethnic series was honored as "best in show" at the Brunnier Gallery Museum.

Natasha continues to exhibit internationally. Her work has evolved over the years and masters a variety of multi media techniques. Natasha's passion for mark-making in drawing and painting encourages a journey of self-discovery and investigation of personal space and overlapping identity. Her international exhibitions and sold out solo shows culminated in to the Ethnic Identity Series of paintings, which were exhibited and sold at Marion Meyer Contemporary Art Gallery in Laguna Beach, California.

She received her MFA in Drawing, Painting and Printmaking from California State University, Fullerton. Natasha’s Spatial Identity series expresses an ebb and flow, abstracted in to threads, connecting her inner and outer spaces, fusing, weaving stitching together the fabric of her being resulting in an overlapping, entwined, layered Spatial Identity. A retrospective solo art exhibition that included work from a span of 25 years titled “Spatial Identity” showcasing 85 mixed media paintings at the Founders Hall Art Gallery, Soka University, an 8,000 sq. ft space. A commissioned mixed media site-specific installation piece measuring 11’h x 20’w was part of the collection as seen in the photo above.

In continous exhibitions and experimentations, and intrigued by the use of beeswax while creating Batiks in high school, Natasha’s energy turned to experiment with the ancient form of encaustic medium. Working with beeswax and oil pigment on wood panels, her current work The Essence of Being series portrays the inner space representing her feelings, felt within the fluid space. She captures symbols that are almost within her subconscious state, spiritual maps of her inner being. This overlap of translucent layers of random spatial imagery and overlapping emotion, spiritual experience and senses are constantly moving, not defined, and forever evolving. Most recently, for her encaustic pieces created on wood panels, an article was written by Meher McArthur (a freelance Asian art historian) and published and featured in KCET Artbound, a Southern California Cultural Journal.

The Essence of Being is a mother-daughter shared world view that harmonizes creative expression through abstract painting, photography, and poetry. The concept behind the the Essence of Being was a product of Natasha's drive in celebrating roots and identity through her art, and Anushe Shoro's (Natasha's daughter) exploration of interconnectedness between herself and the environment. Both mother and daughter began this journey in early 2012 and this exploration can only best be shared through their artwork. The recent published reviews by art critic Roberta Carasso in Art Scene California and by Dr. Joanna Roche in Artillery Magazine express the artists' connection with nature.

Natasha's paintings are in corporate collections worldwide with a major collection at CTBC Bank, USA - Los Angeles, California, Vellani & Vellani, Bank of Mashreq and Bank of America. Her paintings are included in numerous private and public art collections around the world.