Juliet Shen grew up in New York city and has lived in Seattle, Washington since 1983. 

Fine Art

After a 35-year career in design, she resumed drawing and painting, her original passion. Starting in the summer of 2012, she began making drawings en plein air, in Seattle’s industrial Duwamish waterway and in the Union Bay Natural Area, a reclaimed wetlands on top of an old waste dump. When inclement weather finally forced a retreat indoors to the studio, she began creating drawings combined with relief printing, based on her observations of the shifting Northwest landscape and her experiences as part of the Duwamish Residency.

Recently, she has employed forms that pay homage to the Chinese landscape tradition, but with a contemporary approach [Borderline]. In 2018 she has been working on paintings [Hyporheos, Elwha Scrolls] reflecting environmental news in the Pacific Northwest. Her work is always infused with a sense of place, recognizable or fantastical. A month spent in Greece in 2016 resulted in the Aegean Series, a departure from her Pacific Northwest color palette. 

Typographic Design

Juliet is also a typeface designer, with a masters degree in typeface design from the University of Reading, England. Her work was included in Type is Beautiful: the Story of Fifty Remarkable Fonts, by Simon Loxley (2017). She ran an independent graphic design firm in Seattle from 1989–2012.

Research and Writing

For a list of publications authored by Juliet, see the Typography section of this website.