Visceral environments, womb landscapes, places where alien beings and familiar feelings might both germinate and grow.  Shana Kohnstamm's process of image development confounds her.  The paintings themselves evolve once the seed is planted (painted), seemingly without her guidance.  The images mature in stages, growing like organisms or plants do in their efforts to reach light, the surface.

There is an unusual amount of life, death and science that permeates Shana Kohnstamm's daily life (being married to a research physician).  Conversations regarding microbiology over coffee, patient care while folding laundry, the passing of one's soul from body as they themselves drift off to sleep is a part of Shana's everyday.  She has had to learn to talk about blood and bone, breath and skin, natural order and biological corruption, in the same ways she has been used to talking about color and light, friends and lovers, or even groceries and gossip.  Is it any wonder that what has evolved are fleshy mounds that sprout and pulsate?