About Shaun

Based in Baltimore, Shaun Flynn has been an active member of the city's art and music community for the past 15 years, primarily a sculptor and percussionist. His first Baltimore band Cutter/Hammer once played for 60 hours straight in Times Square. Later forming WZT Hearts, he performed both as drummer and vocalist, and with them toured the country and released 2 full length albums with Hoss and Carpark Records. Currently, Shaun is making solo recordings as Vows. In his 2D work, Shaun is… more

Art for Music Events (Show Posters)

A selection of some of my favorite posters, mostly for shows that I played/performed in. All of my posters are hand-drawn, and either screenprinted or photocopied.
  • posterwall.jpg
    posterwall.jpg
    Installation of some of my show/tour posters.
  • Jason Urick/Vows/Dustin Wong/Zomes
    Jason Urick/Vows/Dustin Wong/Zomes
    Jason Urick was also a member of Wzt Hearts. This poster is from after we had moved on to other projects, and I also played this show as my solo project, Vows. This was the record release for Jason's amazing solo debut record "Husbands", on Thrill Jockey Records. This is also exactly what he looks like.
  • Lungfish/Entrance/The Quails
    Lungfish/Entrance/The Quails
    Daniel Higgs and Asa Osborne asked me to make them a poster for their band, Lungfish, also in 2004. Each letter depicts a specifically awesome-named wildflower, like the Wild Bleeding Heart, the Twin Flower, Indian Pipes, etc.
  • Daniel Higgs/Wzt Hearts Tour 2006
    Daniel Higgs/Wzt Hearts Tour 2006
    A couple years later, my band was fortunate to tour with Daniel from Lungfish as he started playing solo shows around that time. I can't really express the admiration and respect I and the rest of my band had and still have for this shimmering holographic man and all the wisdom found in his works. It was a weird tour, to be sure.
  • Wzt Haerts/Moonshine/Sightings/Nick Barna
    Wzt Haerts/Moonshine/Sightings/Nick Barna
    The first official show at the Floristree. Floristree is the name of my home, the sixth floor of the H&H Arts Building in downtown Baltimore. We have been proudly putting on some of the best shows in one of the best spaces that any independent and DIY arts community could ask for. This is a fact we feel privileged and proud to continue, even if it does mean a lot of human energy/electrical energy/trash/mysterious house guests.
  • Wzt Hearts/Thank You Tour
    Wzt Hearts/Thank You Tour
    Out of Baltimore Tour 2005. Thank You is another great Baltimore band that now have 2 good albums, also on Thrill Jockey records.
  • OOIOO Tour
    OOIOO Tour
    OOIOO is a japanese band featuring Yoshimi who also plays for the seminal/legendary Japanese noise icons, The Boredoms. The letters OOIOO are built into the porch-like architecture of this psychedelic treehouse. This was for a tour of the US in 2007, and was screenprinted in Chicago for Thrill Jockey, as well.
  • Reverent Fog Festival 2006
    Reverent Fog Festival 2006
    The poster for the second year of the huge indoor/outdoor festival at the Talking Head Club, organized by Lexie Mountain and the Talking Head. I really love the braided letters I made here to go with the featured braided beast.
  • Yeasayer/Ponytail Tour 2009
    Yeasayer/Ponytail Tour 2009
    Yeasayer and Ponytail are spelled in a diamond in left to right read tiers. They are screenprinted at 18"x24", and the slightly lighter letters composed of less dense squares, glow in the dark. This field of graphed blobs contains some 30,000 hand-drawn squares. This took a long time, but was worth it in the end in the light or in the dark. Great bands, as well.
  • Animal Collective/Growing/Wzt Hoerts*/Gang Gang Dance
    Animal Collective/Growing/Wzt Hoerts*/Gang Gang Dance
    This amazing show was all they way back in November 2004, at the Ottobar in Baltimore. *The name of my band was Wzt Hearts. It could be and was pronounced "Wet Hearts", it could be and was spelled in other random variations, such as here, "Wzt Hoerts". There are a few reasons any of this happened, but they also don't make any real sense. We were an improvised noise band with electronics/modified and prepared instruments from guitars to game boys, and I played drums and sort of screamed and cooed in weird voices sometimes. Between 2004 and 2008, we played some really amazing shows like this one, toured the country, and released 2 albums and other live smaller-run releases.

Art for Music and Musician Minds

These images are selections from my extensive artistic collaboration/synthesis with the music community and musicians. Baltimore has proven an incredibly fertile ground for their continued creation, inspiration, and experiences. I worked with these musicians and artists because I respect and personally champion their own work. It's certainly not for the little money I occasionally receive for my work, which is ok, because I have trouble with deadlines anyway, and tend to spend a long time working through each project until it feels right.
In 2010 I was asked to create a 24 page book that somehow synthesizes the Artist and Musician, in a series of books published by Soundscreen Design, NY, called the "Artists Music Journals". I've attached documentation of the book in this Project series.
  • Artist Music Journals Volume I, # 1-10
    Artist Music Journals Volume I, # 1-10
    Please visit this link for information on this series of Artist/Musician books and about their creators: http://soundscreen.hasawebstore.com/artistmusicjournalsoutnow Baltimore-based Daniel Higgs (of Lungfish and pictured in my posters) and local designer/artist/musicians Bruce Willen and Nolen Strals of PostTypograpy were also asked to contribute issues to this beautiful series I am proud to have been a part of in 2010.
  • Artist Music Journals Vol. I, Issue 2, Shaun Flynn
    Artist Music Journals Vol. I, Issue 2, Shaun Flynn
    Please visit this link for information on my book: http://soundscreen.hasawebstore.com/product/INS61883/volume1no2shaunflynn In Baltimore, they can be found at Atomic Books, in Hampden.
  • I Really stepped In It This Time #4, By Brian Dubin zine cover
    I Really stepped In It This Time #4, By Brian Dubin zine cover
    Brian Dubin is a Baltimore musician and erstwhile comic book genius currently teaching in Japan and loving it. His interests include being really awesome, Nirvana, and existential dread, singularly disproving their mutual-exclusivity. His "I Really Stepped In It This Time" comics are rare Baltimore recent-classics. I asked to draw his portrait for the cover of issue #4.
  • Part Chimp, "Cup" Album cover
    Part Chimp, "Cup" Album cover
    Part Chimp wasn't a Baltimore band, actually they're British, but their American record label was Monitor (currently, "We Are Free") Records, another integral label from the last 10+ years of Baltimore's important music/cultural output. This drawing was used first as a huge newsprint tour poster for their "I Am Come" album, then later used for T-shirts and bags until finally arriving in this colorized version as the cover to their next album, "Cup" in 2007.
  • Thank You 12"
    Thank You 12"
    These are the front and back to the Baltimore band Thank You's twelve inch remix record "Pathetic Magic/Strange All", on Thrill Jockey Records. The Strange All side pictures my installation, "Untitled (Falls Road)", and the other is that same place during the day with a smoke bomb for the Pathetic Magic side.
  • Mi Ami 12"
    Mi Ami 12"
    These are the front and back of the band Mi Ami's 2009 twelve-inch record, "Techno 1.1", from Hoss Records, which was also then Baltimore-based. The center label of the record is designed to show through the whole in the sleeve, completing the eye of this particular braided beast.
  • Lower Dens 7" record cover
    Lower Dens 7" record cover
    This is the art for one side of the band Lower Dens' "I Get Nervous/Johnssong" seven-inch record. The other side of the record is this photograph:www.ryanwidger.com/bigfiles/5.html. This drawing incorporates that image, by Ryan Widger.
  • Ami Dang
    Ami Dang
    T shirt design for musician Ami Dang. Screenprinted on the back of shirts, referencing the musician's beautiful long hair.
  • High Zero 2010
    High Zero 2010
    T-shirt design for the annual High Zero Festival of experimental and improvised music in Baltimore. Visit www.highzero.org for details on this unique annual event featuring performances and improvised collaborations by Baltimore, national, and international musicians.
  • Dave Z
    Dave Z
    Portrait of David Zimmerman, ink on paper drawing created to be a screenprinted insert in Outpost Journal/Issue 2: Baltimore. I created an abstract tessellation to use as a base gray lattice from which to thicken or thin the forms to reveal a portrait of a good friend to me and a fine representative of Baltimore for the new publication Outpost Journal, which dedicates an issue a year to perceived fringe artistic cultural communities in cities around the USA. It was screenprinted on yellow card stock and inserted in every copy of their second issue, which was all about Baltimore.

Formative Vocabulary Archive

Photographs of various sculpture and installation.
  • To encircle traffic, a traffic cone is cut into the shape of the biggest loop
    To encircle traffic, a traffic cone is cut into the shape of the biggest loop
    Left detail shows the cone reconfigured into the original shape, and the right details the work as an unsupported pile.
  • To encircle traffic, a traffic cone is cut into the shape of the biggest loop
    To encircle traffic, a traffic cone is cut into the shape of the biggest loop
    Installation of a traffic cone cut into a continuous unbroken loop. Traffic cone, rope, Falls Road, Baltimore.
  • An increasing amount of traffic cones are placed in improbable locations.
    An increasing amount of traffic cones are placed in improbable locations.
    Photograph from the ongoing series, "An increasing amount of traffic cones are placed in improbable locations." Traffic cones, Howard St. bridge.
  • Untitled (Wet Windshield), and detail
    Untitled (Wet Windshield), and detail
    Automobile windshield, resin. 5'x3'x1'
  • Moonwalker
    Moonwalker
    Photograph of the artist as a young astronaut in a moon walking simulation. ca 1986.
  • Untitled (Red Ball)
    Untitled (Red Ball)
    Photograph. Kicked red ball, ocean.
  • Untitled (Cardinals)
    Untitled (Cardinals)
    Fake cardinals, forest.
  • Void City (mural detail)
    Void City (mural detail)
    Installation view, Painted plywood. 72'x8'.
  • Untitled (Crystal)
    Untitled (Crystal)
    Plywood, milk crates, cable ties, dry ice, frost. 4'x4'x4'.
  • Regular Flowers/Negative Flowers
    Regular Flowers/Negative Flowers
    Two nearly identical bouquets of plastic flowers are presented side by side. One has been painted in the reverse, or negative, colors. Fake flowers, paint. 8'x3'x2'

The Last Time It Is For All Time

Artworks and Installation pictures from my solo show, "The Last Time It Is For All Time", at Galerie Francois E.S.F. in Baltimore, Md.
  • Untitled (Hurricane)
    Untitled (Hurricane)
    Marker on paper drawing exhibited in The Last Time It Is For All Time.
  • The Last Time It Is For All Time
    The Last Time It Is For All Time
    Installation detail, featuring pyramid made of a cut traffic cone.
  • The Last Time It Is For All Time
    The Last Time It Is For All Time
    Installation detail.
  • The Last Time It Is For All Time
    The Last Time It Is For All Time
    Installation detail.
  • The Last Time It Is For All Time
    The Last Time It Is For All Time
    Installation detail.
  • The Last Time It Is For All Time
    The Last Time It Is For All Time
    Installation detail.
  • Floristree Arabesque
    Floristree Arabesque
    Collage of cut photographs of objects from my home (the art, performance, and music venue known as the Floristree). Digitally reproduced at 5'x3' and featured in The Last Time It Is For All Time, here displayed in a bus stop advertising light box.
  • Floristree Arabesque
    Floristree Arabesque
    Collage of cut photographs of objects from my home (the art, performance, and music venue known as the Floristree). Digitally reproduced at 5'x3' and featured in The Last Time It Is For All Time.
  • The Last Time It Is For All Time
    The Last Time It Is For All Time
    Installation detail.
  • Heat Chief
    Heat Chief
    Photograph of installation that was approximately 36'x15'x20'. Afghans and found objects. Reproduced on billboard vinyl, 25'x12'. This image also used as the wraparound album cover for my band Wzt Hearts' first album, Heat Chief.

Landscape Portraits / Zomes (Asa Osborne)

In 2010, I made 2 ink portraits of 2 friends using real or imagined landscapes as their settings, the portraits showing through as illusions of the landscapes' specifications. "Gettysburg (Andrew Field-Pickering)" was created specifically as lp/cd album art for his music project "Maxmillion Dunbar" and his first album, "Cool Water," on Ramp Recordings. The woods setting for the drawing depicts a house that his dad built, and is a special orchard-neighboring setting in Gettysburg crucially formative to his life, music, and many cool memories that have emerged from there over many summers. I have included as reference/process photographs the original house and portrait study of Andrew that I used. "Untitled (Elizabeth Flyntz)" is a purposefully unfinished landscape in an unsure land of flora and fauna, a cabin, and dead trees. Maxmillion Dunbar also used a close crop of this drawing as art on his 3-song 12" (prequel to Cool Water) record, "Every Girl's Dream." I have also included here images of both that final product, as well as a closer detail of her cabin/face. It is great to be able to use work like this for album and poster work, because the drawings themselves have no specific commercial adjustments, words, or other specifications from whomever in this case considered me a client. They are drawings that just happened to be perfect for the reproducible projects, made out of love and respect for the people and music that have brought those things to me.

Also included in this project series are 3 pictures from my drawing and poster making process for the Skull Defekts w/Daniel Higgs/Zomes/Microkingdom/Shave show for 4/8/11 at Floristree, which is the multi-use performance and art space where I have lived and helped curate hundreds of events in Baltimore for the past 9 years . It depicts a portrait of Asa Osborne, aka Zomes, someone whose music, art, and life, are as inspiring to me as are the landscape portrait subjects.
  • Zomes (Asa Osborne)
    Zomes (Asa Osborne)
    Original reference portrait photograph that I shot in Asa's kitchen.
  • Zomes (Asa Osborne)
    Zomes (Asa Osborne)
    Drawing in progress.
  • Zomes (Asa Osborne)
    Zomes (Asa Osborne)
    20"x23" ink portrait of Asa Osborne, aka Zomes, prepared for screenprinting. Screenprinted poster was for the Skull Defekts/Zomes/Microkingdom/Shave show at Floristree on 4/8/11.
  • Maxmillion Dunbar "Every Girl's Dream" 12"
    Maxmillion Dunbar "Every Girl's Dream" 12"
    Record with "Untitled (Elizabeth Flyntz)" as center label.
  • Reference photograph for Untitled (Elizabeth Flyntz)
    Reference photograph for Untitled (Elizabeth Flyntz)
    Liz
  • Untitled (Elizabeth Flyntz)
    Untitled (Elizabeth Flyntz)
    detail
  • Untitled (Elizabeth Flyntz)
    Untitled (Elizabeth Flyntz)
    Ink on paper. 14"x19." Face is 5" tall.
  • AFP Gettysburg House (reference)
    AFP Gettysburg House (reference)
    Reference shot of the explained Gettysburg compound used as a study for the drawing.
  • AFP (reference)
    AFP (reference)
    Preliminary photograph taken of Andrew.
  • Gettysburg (Andrew Field-Pickering)
    Gettysburg (Andrew Field-Pickering)
    AKA "Cool Water" album art for Maxmillion Dunbar

Installation and works from Protocol: Syntax/Semantics at Gallery Four

"Protocol: Syntax/Semantics" was a 4 person show (Shaun Flynn, Brian Randolph, Hadieh Shafie, and Dan Steinhilber) at Gallery Four in the Summer of 2009. From Gallery Four's press release: "The artists in this show compile objects from material culture to invent a stunning new vernacular, which sometimes compliments and also contradicts their original meaning."
  • Working on the install for Protocol: Syntax/Semantics at Gallery Four
    Working on the install for Protocol: Syntax/Semantics at Gallery Four
    I had to completely seal my end of the gallery because of the sheetrock dust from creating "Bad Hammock" on location.
  • Void City
    Void City
    Plywood, Paint, City.
  • Please Be Good Horrifying Power Rock
    Please Be Good Horrifying Power Rock
    Found rock (WV)
  • A Curved Door Opens Around Me (detail)
    A Curved Door Opens Around Me (detail)
  • A Curved Door Opens Around Me
    A Curved Door Opens Around Me
    detail
  • A Curved Door Opens Around Me
    A Curved Door Opens Around Me
    Reconfigured door, traffic cone, resin. 3'x5'x3'
  • Bad Hammock
    Bad Hammock
    detail
  • Bad Hammock
    Bad Hammock
    Single sheet of carved sheetrock, rope, plywood. Various heights x4'x8'.
  • Installation view
    Installation view
  • Strange All (Falls Road)
    Strange All (Falls Road)
    Photograph of installation. Installation was approximately a quarter mile long. Colored reflective vinyl on trees and land. Viewed by driving through at night, revealed by headlights only.

Love the Woods but Keep it Together I, II, III

Love the Woods but Keep it Together I, II, III are an evolving series of sculptures with plywood and tennis balls, predominantly. They emerged from investigating the potential of single forms/objects, in this case, a 4'x8' sheet of plywood, without using metal hardware or glue to find their forms. I started making these collapsible pyramids, and the tension of the bended wood formed the proper pressure to pinch and hold the tennis balls, chosen only for their perfect qualities that these forms materially desired, geometrically, practically, and formally, creating a flexible but quite sturdy precarious form. The most recent version, "III", takes a big step forward creating 8 diamonds held together with bungee cords into an octahedron. The geometric name for these facets of this platonic solid as they spike, or pyramid, out from their edges, is stellation. The sculpture is therefore a Stellated Octahedron, an important octave of the universal harmony of forms.
  • Love the Woods but Keep it Together I (detail)
    Love the Woods but Keep it Together I (detail)
  • Love the Woods but Keep it Together I
    Love the Woods but Keep it Together I
    Single sheet of carved plywood, tennis balls, fishing lures. 8'x4'x3'. 2008.
  • Love the Woods but Keep it Together II
    Love the Woods but Keep it Together II
    Dark installation view.
  • Love the Woods but Keep it Together II
    Love the Woods but Keep it Together II
    Single sheet of carved plywood, tennis balls, traffic cone(s). 8'x4'x3'. 2008.
  • Love the Woods but Keep it Together III (Stellated Octahedron) in progress
    Love the Woods but Keep it Together III (Stellated Octahedron) in progress
    Unfinished octahedron during the installation at Space 1026, Philadelphia, for the End of Daze exhibition, August 2010.
  • Love the Woods but Keep it Together III (Stellated Octahedron)
    Love the Woods but Keep it Together III (Stellated Octahedron)
    Plywood, tennis balls, cable ties, bungee, red ball. approx. 5'x5'x5'. 2010.
  • Love the Woods but Keep it Together III (Stellated Octahedron)
    Love the Woods but Keep it Together III (Stellated Octahedron)
    Plywood, tennis balls, cable ties, bungee, red ball. approx. 5'x5'x5'. 2010.
  • Love the Woods but Keep it Together III (Stellated Octahedron)
    Love the Woods but Keep it Together III (Stellated Octahedron)
    Plywood, tennis balls, cable ties, bungee, red ball. approx. 5'x5'x5'. 2010.

Triple Helix / All Feeling In Sides (Truncated Icosahedron)

The first images are from Baltimore Liste, an ambitious series of week-long groups of solo shows in May 2011 at The Contemporary Museum by artists nominated by various galleries in Baltimore and then selected by Director Sue Spaid after personal studio visits. All artists were asked to create new works for the exhibit.

As an honored recipient of a 2011 b-grant, I was invited to participate in the Baker Art Awards Exhibit at The Baltimore Museum of Art in September. The second sculpture depicted is my piece for that exhibit.
  • me-6.jpg
    me-6.jpg
    Beginning my de-installation. Special thanks to all at the Baker Artist Awards for the opportunity, and to the very helpful and patient exhibition staff at the BMA. It was a beautiful show.
  • bmaeddiefelting.jpg
    bmaeddiefelting.jpg
    During the install, the icosahedron is completed with cable ties, and the inner face felting is well underway, here with Eddie at the BMA helping the process along.
  • garybymitrohood.jpg
    garybymitrohood.jpg
    At a distance, the icosahedron is dwarfed by the amazing installation by 2011 Baker Award winner Gary Kachadourian. Photo by Mitro Hood.
  • bmakatiemcfaul.jpg
    bmakatiemcfaul.jpg
    One of the many great photos from the exhibition closing reception, BMA Late Nite. Photograph by Katie McFaul.
  • All Feeling In Sides (Truncated Icosahedron)
    All Feeling In Sides (Truncated Icosahedron)
    detail
  • All Feeling In Sides (Truncated Icosahedron)
    All Feeling In Sides (Truncated Icosahedron)
    For the 2011 Baker Artist Awards at the BMA, I created All Feeling In Sides (Truncated Icosahedron). The completed installation was just over 8 feet in diameter, here with wallpaper by Post-Typography in the background. Wood, cable ties, green felt.
  • Triple Helix
    Triple Helix
    installation shot
  • Triple Helix
    Triple Helix
    detail from bottom
  • Triple Helix
    Triple Helix
    detail
  • Triple Helix
    Triple Helix
    My friend Lisa checks out Triple Helix, for Baltimore Liste at The Contemporary Museum. Photo by Eddie Winter. Sculpture is 18'x5'x5'.

Works and Installation at Shoot The Lobster project space, at Martos Gallery, NYC

I exhibited 3 sculptures this July at the Shoot The Lobster project space at Martos Gallery, in Chelsea, NYC. The 3 person show also included David Ostrowski and Max Warsh, and was curated by Baltimore's Nudashank Gallery.
  • A Curved Door Opens Around Me
    A Curved Door Opens Around Me
    Installation shot of my 2009 work, A Curved Door Opens Around Me, also exhibited at the Chelsea gallery this past July.
  • Shoot The Lobster
    Shoot The Lobster
    Installation view featuring A Curved Door Opens Around Me (reconfigured door, traffic cone, resin) and I Was Up Above It But Now I'm Down In It.
  • The Vacuum (64 Tetrahedron)
    The Vacuum (64 Tetrahedron)
    Another angle of the work, here shown as it was first exhibited in March 2012 at the Guest Spot Gallery, in Baltimore.
  • The Vacuum (64 Tetrahedron)
    The Vacuum (64 Tetrahedron)
    detail from another angle.
  • The Vacuum (64 Tetrahedron)
    The Vacuum (64 Tetrahedron)
    Drywall, tennis balls, rubber bands, cable ties, fireproof expanding foam, ratchet straps. 19"x19"x19". 2012. 64 pyramidal drywall tetrahedrons, each containing a tennis ball, are assembled in a recent quantum physicist's theoretical shape of the vacuum of space, held together by symmetrical ratchet strap weaving, and every non-bordering tetrahedron cell is filled with expanding foam.
  • Shoot The Lobster
    Shoot The Lobster
  • I Was Up Above It But Now I'm Down In It
    I Was Up Above It But Now I'm Down In It
    detail
  • I Was Up Above It But Now I'm Down In It
    I Was Up Above It But Now I'm Down In It
    Wood, drywall, cable ties, felt, red play ball, tennis balls, ratchet strap. 36"x36"x36". 2012. A red ball is nested inside a felted drywall icosahedron, suspended by tennis balls that pinch it in the center on each of it's 12 inner vertices, nested by a ratchet strap within a felted wood dodecahedron held together by cable ties.
  • Shoot The Lobster
    Shoot The Lobster
    Installation shot of I Was Up Above It But Now I'm Down In It in front of David Ostrowski paintings.
  • Shoot The Lobster
    Shoot The Lobster
    Installation of exhibited sculptures, with a Max Warsh painting on the wall.