Shanoor is an American neo-symbolic expresionist, fine artist, designer, creative director, photographer, CEO, Owner of Devarj Design Agency, Inc. and speaker who has been making art for five decades.
His artistic career began at the tender age of 16 in Beirut, Lebanon, where he lived until 1975 when, because of the Lebanese civil war, he migrated to the United States.
As a precocious sixteen-year-old, his work was exhibited in the Armenian Genocide Exhibition in Beirut. That year, his paintings were also accepted at the German Cultural Association for International Children’s exhibitions.
His work was later featured in the Children’s Museum of Armenia (1966), and in a group show at the Musée Sursok (1967). In 1969, Shanoor assisted in sculpting the official portrait bust of The Honorable Sami (Bay) Solh,
the Prime Minister of Lebanon, and in 1974, marking an important final achievement in Beirut just before moving to the US, Shanoor participated in a milestone group show at Galerie Contemporaine with Middle Eastern artists Rafic Charaf, Fateh Al Mudarress, and Juliana Séraphim.
He was educated in advertising design with a BFA at London’s Barking College and following Shanoor’s move to Chicago in 1975 he was educated at the Art Institute of Chicago.
He began a career in art direction, branding, and design for advertising agencies such as Leo Burnett, BBDO before eventually opening his own design firm in 1984. Alongside his fruitful career in design, Shanoor continued to develop his personal artistic practice.
Shanoor began experimenting with painting on a range of new materials, including large un-stretched canvases, shower curtains, and found paper, and held shows at various alternative and traditional art spaces and world wide tours including Spain, Greece, Berlin, Venice, Switzerland, NY, Miami, Amsterdam, Chicago, Boston, LA, SC, NC, IN and Missouri.
Shanoor’s creative opus serves as a testament to the American Dream. His unique perspective is informed by a life that has experienced great tragedy and triumph.
Throughout his artistic career, Shanoor’s work has been engaged with themes of human rights, social justice, and freedom.
His journey as an Lebanese-Armenian-American informs a deep appreciation for freedom, justice and tolerance. These concepts reside at the heart of his artistic practice. Shanoor’s work is perhaps all the more relevant as we find ourselves at a crossroads in American Democracy — he has experienced first-hand the devastation that occurs when society fails to value individual liberties. The perspective he offers is both objective and empathetic, full of hope whilst recognizing the challenge ahead.
Through his art, Shanoor hopes to access and expand the viewer’s humanity. He uses bright colors and gestural brush strokes to depict vibrant new forms of life that team with magic.
His style combines expressionism, pop art, street art and symbolism— at the same time, the art he makes is profoundly unique. By inventing original characters and creating an extraordinary visual landscape, one that is purposefully exotic, he challenges the viewer to step outside of their comfort zone, asking us to confront and overcome unseen prejudices. His artistic practice seeks to cultivate the radical acceptance he wishes for the world.
Pairing his experience with graphic design, photography, digital imaging with his predilection for sculpting, painting, and illustrating, Shanoor developed a signature artistic language which he describes as Neo-Symbolic Expressionism, or Toto Coelo, “extreme conditions. ”Shanoor’s Toto Coelo paintings have won numerous awards and have been exhibited internationally.