Featured image and image above: Shawn Huckins, courtesy of Shawn Huckins Studio.
Cloth can both conceal and reveal — draped to cover, worn boldly as a statement, or pulled aside to unveil a surprise. Painter Shawn Huckins uses textiles to explore ideas about identity and blending worlds in INTERVENTIONS: Shawn Huckins, on view at Cheekwood through October 26. Launched in 2021, the INTERVENTIONS series invites artists to engage with the Cheekwood Mansion’s historic interiors through their own creative lens.
Seven of Huckins’ paintings are integrated into the historic period rooms of the Mansion, threading a compelling connection between past and present. Each piece draws inspiration from Cheekwood’s permanent collection and its 55-acre estate, inviting visitors to explore history through a modern lens.
Rooted in classical imagery, Huckins’ paintings blend into the Mansion’s surroundings, but a closer look reveals unexpected details.
In the Drawing Room, you’ll find Huckins’ contemporary painting Portrait in Metallic Chrome Fabric (Henry Fitzroy after Kneller), inspired by a 17th-century portrait from Cheekwood’s permanent collection. Huckins painted Fitzroy, a military commander, with a silver fabric obscuring part of his face. The juxtaposition of traditional portraiture and flowing metallic fabric creates an interesting peek-a-boo effect.
Shawn Huckins (American, b. 1984), Portrait in Metallic Chrome Fabric (Henry Fitzroy after Kneller), 2025, Oil and acrylic on canvas. On loan from the artist.
Godfrey Kneller (English, 1646–1723), Henry Fitzroy (1663–1690), First Duke of Grafton, c.1685, Oil on canvas, Gift of Mr. Thomas Levis. 1961.17.
In the Dining Room, the artist took inspiration from the lapis lazuli fireplace, infusing its rich blue hue into Tennessee and Lapis Lazuli Blue Curtain, a Hudson River School-style landscape that reinterprets Alexander H. Wyant’s 1866 painting Tennessee.
Two works in the Butler’s Pantry honor Dutch vanitas painting, featuring hyper-realistic floral still lifes. “These are more experimental to honor Cheekwood’s gardens,” says Huckins, noting this was his first foray into painting flowers. The blooms nod to vanitas symbolism — flowers that wilt as a reminder of life’s fleeting nature.
To achieve lifelike draping in his creations, Huckins arranges real fabric around Isaac, his studio mannequin, and studies how the textiles fall under light. He also experiments with arrangements on the computer before drawing his composition to canvas.
Though everything is painted in INTERVENTIONS, Huckins has used real 3D textiles in his art. “In my last series, I incorporated yarn into the paintings. I made these latch-hook rugs and attached them to the canvas. It was difficult and it made me sneeze a lot, but it was fun,” he says with a laugh.
Playfulness and humor are hallmarks of Huckins’ work, but deeper messages lie within the layers — personal expressions of wrestling with his own insecurities and inner critic. He hopes viewers take away something optimistic.
“The paintings are about identity, so I hope people realize their own self-worth and that there’s beauty all around,” Huckins says. “We’re living in some hard times right now, so just to see the simple things in life — like a tree between two curtains — can be beautiful.”
In the Q&A below, Huckins shares more about his craft and the inspiration behind his INTERVENTIONS exhibition at Cheekwood.
Tennessee and Lapis Lazuli Blue Curtain by Shawn Huckins at Cheekwood. Photography by Diana Rosales.
Can you tell us a little bit about your background as an artist?
I’m from Peterborough, New Hampshire, which is a small arts center town in Southwestern New Hampshire. I went to school for film, design, and architecture but I switched because it was too computer based. I graduated in 2006 with a degree in studio art. After that I took day jobs to pay the bills, but I had a text series that got some recognition, and I went full-time as an artist around 2011.
How did you get into this realistic style of painting?
My family, they’re a bunch of carpenters and architects, so everything is detail-oriented and that kind of rubbed off on me. It’s been ingrained in me to be precise in my craft. I tried to do abstract work in the past. My professors in school were like, “Shawn, just loosen up a little bit, you gotta relax.” And I’m like, “I’ll try, but I can’t” [laughs].
What inspired you to start blending classical artworks with modern, contemporary elements?
When I was in school I didn’t take any figure painting courses. When I graduated, I wanted to teach myself how to paint portraits and learn the flesh colors, so I would copy old masters by tracing them to teach myself how to paint.
In the studio I had a piece of tracing paper that had “LOL” on it, and one of my test studies went below the tracing paper, and I saw that contrast between the new and the old. The text series was born from that, combining historical with contemporary things.
What themes did you explore in the seven works you created for INTERVENTIONS, and how do they connect to the Cheekwood Estate?
Within the seven paintings, there are two series. One series is called Dirty Laundry, which is the portraits wrapped in fabric and revealed, and that explores the complexities of identity, the self, insecurities, hiding, all those things.
The second series is my new Curtain series, which combines curtains or draperies with landscapes. And that deals with blending two worlds together, a dreamlike state with reality and where those two crossroads meet.
Great Smoky Mountains During Sunrise and Red Curtain by Shawn Huckins at Cheekwood. Photography by Sam Angel.
The Curtain series suggests that something’s behind the curtain. What’s behind the curtain and why does that appeal to you?
In the newer work, behind the curtains are mostly made-up landscapes that I’ve conjured up. My partner and I recently built a house in Peterborough, and our bedroom faces the east. We have these long curtains and every morning we see the most beautiful sunrises over Temple Mountain. One morning there was a slit in the curtain. It wasn’t fully closed, and the bursting colors came through the curtains. It was beautiful, it was fairy-tale like, very dreamlike. And I was thinking to myself, “I’m so lucky to be here and to have the opportunity to own this land and just see this every morning.”
So, the Curtain series was kind of born from that visual and expands from that.
Do you have a personal favorite piece in this exhibition?
Great Smoky Mountains During Sunrise and Red Curtain is inspired by a previous painting of mine. The other painting has a blue curtain and in the middle is a view of Mount Monadnock, a mountain where I’m from. I see it from my house; it’s a beautiful thing to see. This painting is part of the Curtain series; it blends two worlds together. With this painting, I swapped out Mount Monadnock with the Great Smoky Mountains to honor Tennessee, where I’m showing at Cheekwood. I wanted to honor the state that we’re in and the Mansion.
The sunrise is a wildfire smoky haze because where I’m from in New Hampshire, lots of wildfire smoke from Canada has been drifting down. It’s horrible, but we have these beautiful sunrises and sunsets. I also think it’s neat that New Hampshire and Tennessee are connected by the Appalachian Mountain range.
Is there a reason why the curtain is red in that painting?
I saw bits of red in the carpet and in the fabric of the chairs in the Mansion Library, so I thought that it would go well with the wood tones. It fits perfectly.
Shawn Huckins (American, b. 1984), Various Floral and Plaid Fabrics: Young Girl Holding a Basket of Fruit (after Drouais), 2023, Oil and acrylic on canvas. On loan from the artist.
Various Floral and Plaid Fabrics: Young Girl Holding a Basket of Fruit (after Drouais) by Shawn Hawkins at Cheekwood. Photography by Diana Rosales.
The fabric is obscuring the face of the figure in Various Floral and Plaid Fabrics: Young Girl Holding a Basket of Fruit (after Drouais), which is common in your work. What inspired that painting?
That painting is part my Dirty Laundry series, which was inspired by Covid. We were all locked in our houses, we were all questioning our life choices, who we are as people. I was questioning myself as an artist; I started questioning my own identity. What I did is I took historical portraits I’ve been working with for 10-plus years, and instead of putting text over them, which I’m known for, I used draped cloth around the faces to hide their identity to symbolize hiding their insecurities, their desires. The whole series was born from my insecurities as a person.
What is the most fun you’ve ever had while making art?
We just built a house and along with that house, we built a studio, too. My entire career I’d been working in a tiny spare bedroom. Now I have a big boy studio so I have room to sprawl out and I can work on more ambitious projects. It’s been really fun the last year and a half, where I can just really focus on making some good work and not be confined by a tiny space.
Do you have a favorite spot in the gardens or has anything caught your eye outdoors at Cheekwood?
The installation by James Turrell, Blue Pesher, is beautiful. I found that space is really calming and meditative – it’s very peaceful in there.
If your art had an odor, what would it smell like?
If you mean a literal odor, such as oil paint, or solvents, that’s what they smell like. But if you mean a metaphorical smell based on imagery, I would say fresh, cold morning air with a breeze of musty basement smell. Maybe a hint of wildfire smoke….