(b. 1976)
Te Ātiawa, Ngāpuhi, Taranaki.
Lives in Maketu
Shannon began carving in 2000 at Whitireia Polytech in Porirua under the tutelage of Hemi Te Peeti. In 2001 he received a Te Waka Toi scholarship in recognition of his talents as an emerging Māori artist. From 2003 he honed his skills at the New Zealand Māori Arts and Crafts Institute in Rotorua, graduating in 2006.
In 2007 he was invited to participate in an artistic cultural exchange at the Freda Diesing School of Northwest Coast Art, Terrace, B.C, Canada, where worked with senior First Nations artists Dempsey Bob, Stan Bevan, Ken McNeil, and their students.
From 2008 to 2017 Shannon taught whakairo at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, Rotorua, eventually delivering the Maunga Kura Toi Whakairo degree program.
In 2018 Shannon established his own workshop in Rotorua, where he creates large-scale commissioned works, most recently a poupou of ‘Taeotu’ for Rotorua Lakes Council (2021) in collaboration with Grant Marunui, and most notably assisting Lyonel Grant with ‘Nga Waka Herenga’ at the Park Hyatt Hotel located in Wynyard Quarter, Auckland (2019).
Shannon Wafer featured Works