12 Stages of a Collaborative Painting by Shelly Hehenberger

For the past few years, I have been making collaborative mixed media paintings with another artist, Luna Lee Ray. Our process involves trading pieces back and forth continuously until we feel that the image is complete.

The collaborative process is always an exciting one, especially when the layers of a piece begin to build and bring a piece to life! Luna and I each bring our own sensibilities and style to the process, but we very often borrow from the patterning and imagery that the other artist has begun in any given piece.

I made this short video to show the stages of one such collaborative piece and the extreme changes that occurred in it as each new layer was applied. It is a piece entitled Exchanged and Revealed, the signature piece from a recent show at the Suntrust Gallery in the Durham Arts Council Building. This piece was created in 12 layers over the course of the two month show and is 36” by 36” in size.

I hope you will enjoy this glimpse into the complexity of the layers shown in this video.

Here are a few more finished samples from our recent group of collaborative paintings.