Shawn Hensley

Shawn Hensley

Shawn Hensley grew up in a home surrounded by a scrap junkyard, framed by desert and the mountains on the outskirts of Tucson, Arizona. He started creating art as early as he can remember, engaging with a wide variety of mediums. He attended a fine arts high school and earned a BFA in sculpture and ceramics from the University of Arizona. Out of college, he was hired as a sculptor in the museum fabrication industry. In the past 29 years, he has made hundreds of highly realistic figures, plants, animals, and insects, literally anything you can think of from the desert to the deep sea. His professional work can be seen all over the US and the world, in nature centers, state museums, and aquariums. For example, one sculpture you might recognize of his is the mammoth on the U of I campus. His current personal work is a focused study of birds. He is sculpting with cement and metal to make large, outdoor public art. He recently sold a 9-foot sculpture of an American Kestrel to be installed at a new public garden in Bloomington-Normal. He is also working on a White-breasted Nuthatch and is drawing with markers, pastels, pens, and his iPad to draw an expansive variety of realistic birds.