Biography and Artist Statement

Shelagh Howard is an award-winning photographer and visual artist whose work explores time, memory, and the human condition, with embodiment as both focus and framework.

For Shelagh, photography is a personal epiphany: a liberation, a revelation, a revolution. With an unflinching lens, she invites viewers to dismantle the slick edifice of artificially constructed identities, and to instead turn inwards and reflect on the nature of the true, vulnerable self. Working in nudes and portraits, Shelagh leverages long exposures to create dichotomous images that are both vividly dynamic and poignantly minimalistic. 

Each image asks the viewer to see its subject free of the trappings of clothing or gender, captured outside of time, and to consider what it means to belong to and in a body. Negating the backdrop of easy identifiers or assumptions, the work spotlights the exploration of concepts like selfhood, intimacy, loneliness, vulnerability, isolation, and connection through the expression of the human form.

Shelagh’s work with the male figure explores the rarely seen perspective of the male nude through a woman's eyes—one that challenges traditional, toxic masculinity in favour of a viewing experience that is genuine, curious, human and humane. 

A Toronto native, Shelagh studied psychology at The University of Toronto, and photography at Ryerson University, and has since created and exhibited works in Canada, the US and Europe, building a strong professional reputation. She has been published in Songlines Magazine UK, Opera Canada, The Globe and Mail, The National Post, The Toronto Star, VICE magazine, on billboards in Times Square, NYC and Dundas Square, Toronto, and in press and digital media internationally. Shelagh’s work was selected for the juried SNAP - ACT Silent Auction (March 2019 and 2020) and the Live Auction (2021) and she received an honourable mention at the 14th Annual Julia Margaret Cameron Awards in Barcelona, Spain. In 2021, she received the 2021 Artist Award from the Cornell Henry Art Gallery in San Diego.