Todd Shepherd is an up and coming artist whose paintings are already setting an example for other artists on how to make art come alive. "Artwork is an entity in itself and if it isn't made to breathe and flourish, then it's just not made with the right intentions." Not everybody can pull that off but Todd is certainly one of the artists able to create works that have their own personality, and that speak to you on multiple levels.

“ Painting makes me feel a deep connection to the universe,” Todd claims. "Art is a portal to distant realms and intimate places inside your mind, where the true outer space dwells." Shepherd seeks creations that open that kind of doorway. It's what brings the viewer back to his work time and time again. One view, one experience, and you have to revisit the far off/close-by places that Shepherd's art causes to be expressed in the mind's eye.

“Art makes me happy because it brings like-minded people together to celebrate life." he said. "Besides being a gateway to self-discovery and self-awareness, art is also a portal to other people. Displaying and viewing art brings together people of like-mind who might not have otherwise discovered each other. It's also a way to find new people with different ideas. Great art is a visual highway of non-verbal communication."

“Art helps me focus on being present and living in the now,” Shepherd says. "The past is an important educator and the future is a source of goals but nothing is more important than being in the now. And the poignancy of this art brings one to a place of immediacy that helps to appreciate the now, to forget the threat of the future and the harms of the past and find pure joy in life." Todd's artwork ably accomplishes this for its viewers, drawing them in to a specific place that provides the escape and fulfillment people seek in modern expression.

“My biggest inspiration is nature ... outer space to be specific.” This is readily apparent when you first see the works of Shepherd. It conjures up the geography of outer space, the realm of the distant and awe-inspiring. Todd's art could be the perfect graphic to describe an out of body experience into other places beyond one's self and right inside one's own skull. Shepherd composes colorscapes that are engaging and truly hypnotic, scenes that carry the viewer far away. “I see satellite images of nebulae, galaxies and other planets and I wonder what entertains them out there.”

According to Shepherd, not an hour goes by that some piece of art isn't concocted in his studio or in his head. Creation is too much a part of him and the fact that his passion runs this deep is evidence of just how rich his compositions are.