shanina dionna

shanina dionna is a West Philly-based interdisciplinary artist, nonprofit educator, and certified Person-Centered Expressive Arts facilitator. Her work integrates visual art, somatic practice, and community facilitation to support mental wellness, collective healing, and culturally responsive care.

Exploring mediums and arts-based practices including earth-based paints, murals, expressive/improv movement, photography, installation, film, and play, shanina creates immersive, community-rooted experiences where art manifests as both creative expression and social medicine. Her practice centers communities navigating systemic barriers, using the arts as a catalyst for emotional awareness, self-regulation, and communal wellness.

Her cross-sector collaborations span museums, behavioral health organizations, nonprofits, schools/universities, and civic spaces, including the Barnes Foundation, Penn Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services (DBHIDS), the Philadelphia System of Care, Moore College of Art & Design, and the Office of Senator Sharif Street. In 2023, she piloted an Expressive Arts Healing program for adults at Fleisher Art Memorial, currently available tuition-free. Her work is permanently installed at The Colored Girls Museum in Germantown - marking her first museum acquisition - and has been presented at the Urban Art Gallery (UAG), Icebox Project Space, Vox Populi, Philly PACK, Fashion District Philadelphia, and the National Liberty Museum. In 2025, shanina was selected as the inaugural Artist in Residence at the Paul Robeson House & Museum, and in 2016 founded ARTbuds Philly, a free youth arts program housed at UAG.

shanina is a Dean Collection 20 St(art)ups grant awardee (2018), a Mural Arts Philadelphia Black Artist Fellow (2023), a Temple University alum (2024), and is currently earning a master’s in Art Therapy & Counseling at Drexel University (c/o 2026).