Rate My Professor Shaun Roberts

Shaun Roberts serves as Associate Professor of Painting in the School of Art at Stephen F. Austin State University. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting and drawing from SFA, earned in 2010, and a Master of Fine Arts in painting and drawing from the University of Washington, completed in 2012. Upon graduation from the University of Washington, Roberts received the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant for graduating MFA students—one of only 50 awarded nationally—and the Jane and David Davis Endowed Fellowship in Art. Prior to his current role, he served as Instructor of Record at the University of Washington School of Art + Art History + Design from 2011 to 2012. Since 2013, he has taught a range of courses at SFA, including Drawing I and II, Introduction to Painting, Figure Painting, Figure Drawing, BFA Exhibition, Undergraduate Seminar, Graduate Figure Drawing, Graduate Painting, and Graduate Seminar.

Roberts' artistic practice centers on timeless narratives conveyed through allegorical and mythological motifs infused with drama and pathos. Inspired by Renaissance painters and Hellenistic sculptors, he crafts archetypal images within mythological landscapes, probing sentimentality and sensuality to foster cathartic encounters between viewer and subject—evoking themes of love, death, or eternal sunsets. His work has appeared in solo exhibitions such as Archetypes and Eternal Stories at the Carnegie Arts Center in Alliance, Nebraska, and the Gadsden Museum of Art in Gadsden, Alabama (2022), and Rebels and Renegades at the Art Museum of Southeast Texas in Beaumont, Texas (2018). Group exhibitions include venues like First Street Gallery in New York City, the University of Southern Mississippi Museum of Art in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, Kentucky, and Kirk Hopper Fine Art in Dallas, Texas, spanning over 20 states. Key honors encompass first place and People's Choice Award in the 7th Annual World Wide Kitsch Classical Painting Competition (2022) and the 2024 Teaching Excellence Award for the Micky Elliott College of Fine Arts at SFA. Roberts recently undertook a residency alongside painter Odd Nerdrum in Norway.