Shane Townley Studio

Contemporary abstract works that challenge perception and evoke quiet intensity. Each piece explores emotion, atmosphere, and the space between form and meaning, inviting viewers into a world where movement, texture, and subtle tension tell a deeper story.

Where the Desert First Spoke

In 2023, during a brief visit to Joshua Tree, internationally collected artist Shane Townley and his wife Yeslin witnessed the vast stillness of the desert’s light — the kind of light that changes everything. One night surrounded by stars, and one sunrise over the open horizon, was all it took. The high desert spoke — and they listened.

Inspired by those first sunsets and sunrises, Townley began the Sunset Series, a body of work capturing the raw transitions of desert light — the moment when day surrenders to night and color dissolves into silence.

What began as a spontaneous artistic response became a turning point: the couple soon chose Joshua Tree as their forever home and desert studio, expanding their creative life beyond New York and Laguna Beach.

Each piece in the Sunset Series radiates with that discovery — the realization that true inspiration often begins with stillness and sky.

Created during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, The Nightmare Series reflects a time of global uncertainty, isolation, and emotional unrest. Each work captures an abstract psychological landscape shaped by fear, tension, and the surreal distortion of reality experienced during lockdown. Through layered textures, dark tonal shifts, and unsettling movement, Shane Townley transforms collective anxiety into powerful visual narratives. Although the entire series has now been sold, its presence remains as a testament to a moment in history when art became both a release and a mirror of the human condition. Viewers are invited to explore this haunting body of work as an archive of emotion, resilience, and transformation.

"BEAST" 104"X60" OIL ON CANVAS 2020