Janet Shaw-Russell examines our untenable belief in permanence in an ephemeral world. She explores the relationship between the body and time, and how art navigates material change.Her obsessive art practice is grounded in the Renaissance tradition of anatomical drawing, but from a contemporary woman’s perspective. For Shaw-Russell, the vulnerable interior of the human body is the site of a network of concerns - feminist, medical and societal.Her multi-media art practice includes drawing, printmaking and sculpture. With graphite or coloured pencil in hand, she draws human anatomy on the delicate tissue of sewing patterns and studies the paradox of fragility and strength.In her associations with Brandon University’s Anthropology Department, the University of Manitoba Human Anatomy Lab and the U of M WIN Herbarium, she investigated shared metaphors within art and science.For 2020 and 2021, Shaw-Russell was one of the artists chosen for Dura Mater: Reflections on Neurofeminism, a visual art and science learning partnership between five artists and five neuroscientists, sponsored by Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art and the Manitoba Neuroscience Network.For Dura Mater, she partnered with Dr. Geoffrey Hicks, a neuroscientist studying fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) and worked with his entire Lab team. Her individual project, Broken Water, a series of drawings, prints and sculptures was the result. The learning partnerships culminated in a group show of the five artists works. Curated by Leona Herzog, Dura Mater: Objective/Subjective, was presented at the Buhler Gallery of Saint Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg from May 13 to Sept. 12, 2021.From 2012 to 2021, venues throughout Manitoba and Saskatchewan such as the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, Martha Street Studio and the Estevan Art Gallery and Museum have exhibited her solo shows.Shaw-Russell co-founded Drawn Together a collective formed to nurture the art careers of a cohort of women artists in rural Manitoba. She is a Canada Council for the Arts Explore and Create: Concept to Realization grant recipient, a Manitoba Arts Council Creation grant recipient and a former MAWA Foundation Mentorship mentee.

Janet Shaw-Russell examines our untenable belief in permanence in an ephemeral world. She explores the relationship between the body and time, and how art navigates material change.

Her obsessive art practice is grounded in the Renaissance tradition of anatomical drawing, but from a contemporary woman’s perspective. For Shaw-Russell, the vulnerable interior of the human body is the site of a network of concerns - feminist, medical and societal.

Her multi-media art practice includes drawing, printmaking and sculpture. With graphite or coloured pencil in hand, she draws human anatomy on the delicate tissue of sewing patterns and studies the paradox of fragility and strength.

In her associations with Brandon University’s Anthropology Department, the University of Manitoba Human Anatomy Lab and the U of M WIN Herbarium, she investigated shared metaphors within art and science.

In 2020 and 2021, Shaw-Russell was one of the artists chosen for Dura Mater: Reflections on Neurofeminism, a visual art and science learning partnership between five artists and five neuroscientists, sponsored by Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art and the Manitoba Neuroscience Network.

For Dura Mater, she partnered with Dr. Geoffrey Hicks, a neuroscientist studying fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) and worked with his entire Lab team. Her individual project, Broken Water, a series of drawings, prints and sculptures was the result.

The learning partnerships culminated in a group show of the five artists works. Curated by Leona Herzog, Dura Mater: Objective/Subjective, was presented at the Buhler Gallery of Saint Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg from May 13 to Sept. 12, 2021.

From 2012 to 2021, venues throughout Manitoba and Saskatchewan such as the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, Martha Street Studio and the Estevan Art Gallery and Museum have exhibited her solo shows.

Shaw-Russell co-founded Drawn Together a collective formed to nurture the art careers of a cohort of women artists in rural Manitoba. She is a Canada Council for the Arts Explore and Create: Concept to Realization grant recipient, a Manitoba Arts Council Creation grant recipient and a former MAWA Foundation Mentorship mentee.