

Opening Reception: Friday, March 8th
|Nevada City Winery
"Awakening: The Sacred Feminine" by Shelley Carlisle
Art photographer and mutimedia artist Shelley Carlisle’s show, “Awakening: The Sacred Feminine” combines a dynamic mixture of her nature photography and imaginative abstract collage, honoring worldwide Goddess mythologies, symbolism, and mystical intrigue.
Time & Location
Opening Reception: Friday, March 8th
Nevada City Winery, 321 Spring St, Nevada City, CA 95959, USA
About The Event
Artist: Shelley Carlisle
Show: "Awakening: The Sacred Feminine"
Medium: Fine Art Photography Collage – incorporating original and found photographic images.
Showing at the Nevada City Winery Galley March 7th – April 7th
Opening Reception: Friday, March 8th | 5:00–7:00 PM
Live Music: Gary Regina will be performing live during Shelley's opening reception. Gary is a "one man band" who brings soundscapes to life through his multi-instrumental performance.
About the Show
Art photographer and multimedia artist Shelley Carlisle’s show, “Awakening: The Sacred Feminine” combines a dynamic mixture of her nature photography and imaginative abstract collage, honoring worldwide Goddess mythologies, symbolism, and mystical intrigue.
Even without having the knowledge of each Goddess’s mythology, viewers will encounter forceful and graceful clues; from a wild horse, a bow and arrow, glowing moons, stars, and snakes coiled or braided, to wildflowers and monolith boulders. All these collages have their own language, speaking of symbolic traits, meanings, and powers which have given peoples of different cultures, beliefs, and societies a sense of self-reflection, direction, and wonder for thousands of years to current times.
Carlisle has also included examples of her nature photographs before they were integrated into her collages; together they become evocative and striking Goddess collages.
Carlisle places her unwavering images in such a visionary, beguiling way that viewers will find themselves questioning and sensing what these Goddesses can awaken in us.
Artist Statement
Art photographer and multimedia artist, Shelley Carlisle, talks about her show “Awakening: The Sacred Feminine” at the Nevada City Winery Gallery.
“Awakening: The Sacred Feminine” exhibition was specifically chosen to open on International Women’s Day. This show channels my deep connection with Goddesses and Mother Nature’s landscapes from many parts of the world. In this series, I celebrate the numerous herstories and revered divinities from ancient & modern cultures that are aligned with the natural cycles of the universe, earth, and the moon, dark and light, death and rebirth.
Each of the Goddesses were created primarily with my photographic landscapes along with found images, and several of those landscapes accompany the collages. I’ve chosen symbolic and metaphorical representations of the beautiful power of each of these entities; not the devalued, horrific, monsters they were made into by dictatorial religion or the patriarchal Gods. My hope is to inspire further exploration of your inner Sacred Feminine and sacred bonds with nature and spirituality.
About the Artist
One of Shelley Carlisle’s favorite activities is to load up her teardrop camping trailer, lovingly named “HRTEMYS,” and head out on solo road trip expeditions to the grounding and healing landscapes of the forests, deserts, canyons, mountains, and beaches. As a multimedia artist, Shelley has a zest for adventure and photographing the awesome and mystical spaces where she hunts for the most unique scenes that capture the beauty and grandeur of Mother Nature and the Sacred Feminine. Through sharing these photographic images, Shelley hopes to inspire the viewer to step inside a magical place where one has been spiritually transported and can viscerally experience the sublime majesty of the natural world.
Shelley employs her photography in 2D cut-out animation, collage, video, and installation, bringing the themes and stories behind nature symbolism, numerology, mythology, and ancient cultures to life, combined with imaginative contemporary templates that together evoke remembrance of our spiritual selves and honor feminine energies and archetypes. She creates meditative environments with her original music, photographs, mirror, film, and projection to inspire metaphorical and literal reflection.
Shelley is the recipient of the Fall 2023 Collage Artist of the Year Award at the Art Comes Alive competition and show with ADC Fine Art, where she has exhibited her work for several years, and in 2022 received the Mills College Nancy Cook Fellowship Award. She exhibits her work in various solo and group shows, juried art fairs throughout California and neighboring states, and has been a photographic finalist in many competitions. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art degree from Mills College, and resides in Nevada City, California where she also teaches youth animation classes.