"Annie & the Wolf" aka "The Liberation of Red Riding Hood" Shannon Gray

Shannon Gray, Booneville, AR

Annie & the Wolf aka The Liberation of Red Riding Hood, 2026

Acrylic on wood panel

48 x 72”

My work exists at the intersection of personal geography, feminist reclamation, and the shared "common ground" of universal folklore. As an artist and educator deeply rooted in the rural American South, I view the landscape not merely as a setting, but as a repository for collective memory and myth—a space where the historical and the uncanny converge.

The concept of "Our Common Ground" is central to my exploration of how we negotiate our relationship with the natural world and the stories we inherit. In my paintings, this ground is often populated by figures that challenge traditional narratives. In Annie & the Wolf, or The Liberation of Red Riding Hood, I draw on the transformative power of the grotesque and the uncanny—themes I have studied through the lens of artists such as Kiki Smith and Paula Rego. By placing the female body in a position of wild agency atop a wolf, I am reimagining the "common ground" of the forest from a place of danger to one of sovereignty, using the "red thread" of fate to weave disparate elements of the subconscious together.

My engagement with the animal kingdom—specifically corvids, as seen in Raven in the Bluebells and The Rooks of Stonehenge—serves as a bridge between the local and the legendary. Whether it is a raven nestled in Southern bluebells or a rook looming over the prehistoric stones of Stonehenge, these works examine the shared heritage between humans and nature. These birds act as sentinels of the "common ground," existing across cultures and eras as symbols of intelligence and transition.

Through a dialogue between my studio practice and my research in art history—spanning from the dreamscapes of Surrealism to the grounded narratives of American Regionalism—I seek to create a visual language that honors the specificity of place while speaking to broader human experiences. "Our Common Ground" is, for me, the fertile soil where identity, gender, and cultural history are continuously replanted and reimagined. It is a space where the ancient stones of the past and the wild landscapes of the present meet to tell new stories of resilience and connection.