Born in Northern Ireland, she studied sculpture at Cheltenham School of Art (1991–94), followed by a Masters degree divided between Glasgow School of Art and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1994–96). She also spent a year at the British School at Rome (1997–98) on a scholarship awarded by the Scottish Arts Council (now Creative Scotland). Her main areas of concern are with ‘landscape, mapping and place, specifically how we individually, collectively and culturally negotiate, define and mediate them’, and her working method frequently involves the participation of disparate groups of people in the production of large bodies of text. She has exhibited in Paris, Melbourne, Naples and Brussels, and in 2005 her work was included in the World Expo in Aichi, Japan. She has also carried out a number of major public commissions, including Inscribables for the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh (2003–04); Travelling the Distance for the Scottish Parliament Building, Edinburgh (2005–06); Blue Spine Collection for the Glasgow Women’s Library (2010); and Something About a Word in the Eastgate office development in the East End of Glasgow (2012). She currently works as a part-time lecturer in the Department of Sculpture and Environmental Art, Glasgow School of Art.
Sources: The Royal Scottish Academy: ‘Shauna McMullan RSA (Elect)’; The Scottish Parliament: ‘Shauna McMullan – Travelling the Distance, 2006’.
Ray McKenzie 2018