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| George Shaw, Study for Hanging Around (Landscape without Figures), 2014 |
George Shaw: My Back to Nature is at the National Gallery until 30 October 2016.
I have long been a fan of
George Shaw’s Humbrol Enamel paintings of the decayed, depressed post-war
housing estate of Coventry, where he grew up – Adrian Searle nicely described his work as
a miserabilist suburban sort of
metaphysical painting. Shaw was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2011 (see below); now, since 2014, he has
been the latest Associate Artist in the National Gallery; The appointment is by invitation and is for a period of two years. The
artist is given a studio in which to make new work that in some way connects to
the National Gallery Collection. It is designed to demonstrate the continuing
inspiration of the Old Master tradition on today's artists.
Shaw’s work includes 14
drawings of himself, naked, in poses that are studies of masterpieces in the
National Gallery. But the main event is a series of paintings which take their cues
from Titian, Breughel and Poussin and which have shifted the artist’s focus away
from Tile Hill (the Coventry housing estate which has been his obsessive
subject) to nature; or, at least, to the wooded areas on the outskirts of that
estate where discarded mattresses and magazines become a feature of the
landscape.
Read reviews by Laura Cumming (she describes the show as ‘riveting’), Waldemar Januszczak, Alastair Smart and Jonathan Jones. Watch a short video: George Shaw: In the Woods, in which the
artist talks about the subject material for his new paintings – the
‘suburban nature’, the ‘other world’ of the wooded land a few hundred yards
away from the housing estates where, take
away containers, soft-drink cans, beer cans, crisp packets, condoms… mark its
character and use.
Read A Q&A with George Shaw... painter. Read an interview from 2011 with Sean O'Hagan.
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| George Shaw, The Sadness of the Middle-Aged Life Model, 2015 |
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| George Shaw, The School of Love |
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| George Shaw, the Foot of a Tree, 2015-16 |
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| George Shaw, Every Brushstroke is Torn out of my Body |
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| George Shaw, Natural Selection, 2015-16 |
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| George Shaw, Natural Selection, 2015-16 (detail) |
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| George Shaw, the Call of Nature |
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| George Shaw, The Rude Screen |
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| George Shaw, My Back to Nature - installation view, National Gallery |
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