Carter Shappy is a Vermont native and Maine-based visual artist working at the intersection of all things printmaking. He is also a designer, illustrator, fabricator, and shop manager at RWS Art Studios in Portland, Maine. In 2015, he received his BFA in printmaking from the Maine College of Art and Design. His artworks are part of private and corporate collections across the U.S. and have been exhibited in a variety of spaces along the East Coast and beyond. In 2016, he was the inaugural artist-in-residence at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, collaborating with scientists to explore intersections of art and science. He has received multiple grants, including two Maine Arts Commission project grants and the EPIC Grant from Canopy Hilton. When he's not in the studio, you're likely to find him swimming in brisk water, scouring coastal Maine for rocks, or cooking with friends and family. ------- Shappy's work stems from the processual traditions of printmaking, examining the intersection of natural systems, human influence, and visual perception. It is grounded in an exploration of the fluid dynamics and complex patterns present in the natural world. Through abstraction and intricate detail, he reflects both the beauty and the disruption found in these systems. In his Ghost Gear series, he repurposes discarded materials—industrial and pedestrian debris collected from coastal landscapes—into swirling, tangled masses. These large-scale, prismatic monotype screen prints and newer figural works evoke the chaotic presence of plastics in our oceans and their permeation into both human and animal physiology. By focusing on the forms and fragments left behind, he create pieces that echo the entangled relationships between humans, industry, and the natural world. His Viscosity series builds on these themes of complexity through self-similar branching patterns, often referred to as viscous fingering in hydrology. Here, he reimagines traditional printing techniques to create fractal-like geometries reminiscent of natural formations. The resulting works range from original impressions to large-scale installations, all of which explore the interconnectedness of natural systems and the fluid dynamics that shape them.