Shawn grew up a farm boy in upstate NY, where he lived with very supportive parents & three equally creative younger brothers. His interest in art began as soon as he was old enough to hold a pencil, sometimes spending hours indoors creating entire worlds of fantasy, complete with creatures of all shapes, sizes and demeanors. He went on to study art at the Rochester Institute of Technology, where he was introduced to the art of Caravaggio, Monet, Rauschenberg, Bacon & Pollock, to name a few, whose work planted the seeds for what eventually developed into the iconic approach to his subject matter.
After serving in the Army as an infantry sergeant, his reluctance to "get a real job" led him to a tattoo apprenticeship in 1991. Almost from the start he began to amass awards, magazine coverage & a big following. Working in the tattoo industry has further helped him to develop a more illustrative approach to his paintings, the ability to convey a message in a single image.
All the while he has continued to paint & develop his style and technique as well as a definition to his impetus for art. He has been drawn to the evils of man as a subject matter, whether it be religion, politics, or just scary folks doing scary shit, he has continually explored the dark side of man in his work. A large influence in his work has been the pop culture from growing up at the tail end of the atomic age and all of the wonderfully terrifying images implanted by the great movies and television at that time.