*Shawn Theodore*

Shawn Theodore (b. 1970) is an interdisciplinary artist/ Afrotheorist based in Philadelphia whose work merges photography, theory, mythmaking, and creative writing to reimagine Black presence as sovereign, eternal, and uncontainable. Born in Germany and raised between Devon, PA and West Philadelphia, Theodore learned early to navigate contrasts-rural stillness and urban urgency, ancestral memory and contemporary life-that continue to shape his vision.  Through his original trademarked framework of Afromythology, Theodore expands photography beyond documentation into ritual and cosmology. His practice spans neighborhood portraiture, mythic figuration, and archival reconstitution, transforming the ordinary into archetype and everyday spaces into portals of memory.  Theodore's work has been acquired by the National Portrait Gallery (his portrait of Amanda Gorman, the inaugural National Youth Poet Laureate), Philadelphia Museum of Art, The African American Museum of Philadelphia, the Library of the Metropolitan Muse um of Art, Library of the Whitney Museum, Library of the Guggenheim Museum, Library of the Getty Institute, Amon Carter Museum of Art, Arcadia University, Texas State University, ArtCenter College of Design, Syracuse University, Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Drexel University, and The Coca Cola Company. His work has also been collected by former First Lady Michelle Obama.  He has exhibited at Temple Contemporary at Tyler School of Art, Hudson Valley Community College, The University of the Arts, and Notre Dame of Maryland University, and has been featured in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Musee Magazine, VIBE Magazine, The New Yorker, and Paper Magazine.  Across images, text, and theory, Theodore creates a body of work that resists erasure and insists on presence, reconceiving Black life as a luminous, sovereign continuum. Click here to view Shawn Theodore's CV.

Please email info@paradigm-gallery.com if you wish to be added to Shawn Theodore's digital collector preview list for his upcoming projects and exhibitions. You may also submit your request here.

If you would like to see the catalog for Shawn Theodore’s “Pyramid Club Uninterrupted: 1937 - 2035” on display at Temple Contemporary through December 19, 2025, please email info@paradigm-gallery.com.

Shawn Theodore's newest collection A Race of Angels is available for purchase below. Read the press release here.