Shrine

Title: "Lebanon United"
Archival Pigment Print on Hahnemuhle 210gsm 50% rag watercolor paper
13″x19″ 
Hand-numbered edition of 150 
Embossed with the Heliotrope Foundation logo.

Unsigned

About the Artwork: This print is a high resolution photograph of Shrine's original mixed media assemblage as an effigy of The Great Oven. The Arabic text exclaims, "Lebanon United, Lebanon United, Hello Hello, I Love You". Print proceeds will raise funds for the Great Oven project working on the ground in Beirut to serve up nourishing meals to the people displaced by the August 4, 2020 chemical explosion that occurred at the city’s main port. 

"At Great Oven, Soldiers of Magic unite for purposes of inspiration, adventure and healing, centered around the preparation and sharing of meals, visual arts and music. Celebrating life through rituals of peace. It is my profound joy to be a part of the Great Oven community." - Shrine

About the Artist: A prolific, self-taught contemporary folk and performance artist, Shrine's career has spanned 30 years. Painting buildings, creating large immersive installations out of trash and found materials, intuitively layering and repurposing these objects into assemblages of beauty and meaning. He works internationally, showing at galleries, museums and participating in festivals. In 1997, he founded The Haunted Shack Gardens, an eccentric, ephemeral sculpture garden in Nicaragua that remains alive and ongoing to this day. 

With the belief in self expression as a healing process, Shrine travels the world to share the creative process with people living in conflict zones, those who have been displaced or face developmental disabilities.

"Self Expression, investigation of self, can be an introduction to healing. At this time in our collective experience of post and continued colonialism, you may be in a position to ask for forgiveness or offer forgiveness.That process can be enhanced and refined through communication using ritual, self expression, art and listening. Part of investigating yourself is to become conscious of your relationship to the natural world. Plunder, over production and pollution define our unsustainable civilization. I find great pleasure in reusing trash and materials that have beendiscarded, squeezing a little more value out of stuff. Whether it helps the situation or not, it helps me to stay inspired and fuels my defiance of the cult of sameness." - Shrine

www.shrinetheworld.com

www.greatoven.org