b. 1952, USA

Jim Shaw Biography

In his multidisciplinary works, Jim Shaw draws from eclectic sources including popular culture, current and historical events, and fragments from his life. Equally significant to his practice is the underside of American culture and history: consumerism, conspiracy theories, cults, and homespun religions, images of which Shaw weaves together into his humorous, irreverent works.

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Education

Shaw holds a BFA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (1974) and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia (1978). Among the generation of visionary artists that graduated from the latter in the 1970s, Shaw was particularly close with Mike Kelley, with whom he studied in Michigan and moved together to Southern California. Upon completing his studies, Shaw worked in the film industry before gaining recognition in the mid-1980s.

Artworks

Shaw's paintings, photographs, sculptures, film, collages, posters, comic strips, and installations often reference one another, engaged in a large narrative that unfolds over an extended period of time.

American culture

The investigation of American culture and history is emblematic of Shaw's work. In the artist's first major project, titled My Mirage (1986–91), a series of 170 images follows the story of Billy, a white middle-class male who navigates life in America of the 1960s and 1970s. Sex and drugs are among the few things Billy encounters, as is rock n' roll, before he falls to cult membership and rises again with the aid of organised religion—a saga that Shaw drew from both his own and his friends' upbringing.

In the painting King Cotton (2015), Shaw's insights are more historical and socio-political. It describes a never-ending act, in which a green mechanical elf spins gold from the cotton giant, alluding to the repetition of history and questioning the morality of pursuit for power and wealth.

Oism

In 2002, the Swiss Institute in New York presented The Goodman Image File and Study, which purported to show the works of the O-ist painter, Adam O. Goodman. Oism, according to the exhibition, was an American religion whose origins in the 1840s coincided with the spread of Mormonism. Both O-ism and Goodman were, on the contrary, Shaw's creations, conceived as a satire of religious fanaticism. Since its inception in the late 1990s, Oism has interrogated the rituals and practices necessary to maintain a religion through paintings, sculptural works, and films.

Drawings

Shaw's work is diverse in media as well as in style. 'Dream Drawings' (1992–1999) series, one of his iconic works, features pencil on paper drawings that feature surreal and yet naturalistic scenes in the style of comic stripes. In a 2015 interview with Ocula, Shaw explained that the uncanny drawings began with his own dreams and their 'occult way of telling ... in a satirical way or a symbolic way with things that are formally similar but not exactly the same'.

Also operating in the comic book style is the 'Blake/Boring' series, ongoing since 2011, which combines the surreal, fantasy world of the 18th century poet and artist William Blake and the superhero comic style of Wayne Boring from the 1950s.

Exhibitions

Since the 1980s, Shaw has been exhibiting his works internationally in both solo and group presentations.

Selected solo exhibitions include Before and AfterMath, Metro Pictures, New York (2021); Hope Against Hope, Simon Lee Gallery, London (2020); Strange Beautiful, Praz-Delavallade, Paris (2019); The Wig Museum, Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles (2017); Jim Shaw: The End is Here, New Museum, New York (2015); Jim Shaw, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles (2013); Dream Drawings, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2012).

Select group exhibitions include NGV Triennial 2020, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2021); Men of Steel, Women of Wonder, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Arkansas (2019); TOM House, Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit (2018); Living Apart Together, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2017); Dream States, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2016).

Sherry Paik | Ocula | 2022

Jim Shaw
featured artworks

Delilah by Jim Shaw contemporary artwork painting
Jim Shaw Delilah, 2014 Acrylic on muslin
48 x 96 inches
Simon Lee Gallery Contact Gallery
The Adoration by Jim Shaw contemporary artwork painting
Jim Shaw The Adoration, 2020 Acrylic on muslin
167.6 x 121.9 x 4.4 cm
Simon Lee Gallery Contact Gallery
Pandora’s Box by Jim Shaw contemporary artwork painting
Jim Shaw Pandora’s Box, 2020 Acrylic on muslin
119.4 x 101.6 x 4.4 cm
Simon Lee Gallery Contact Gallery
One Percent for Art by Jim Shaw contemporary artwork painting, sculpture
Jim Shaw One Percent for Art, 2020 Acrylic on muslin, wood, hardware and synthetic doll wigs
121.9 x 172.7 x 41.3 cm
Simon Lee Gallery Contact Gallery
The Hope That Blinds by Jim Shaw contemporary artwork painting
Jim Shaw The Hope That Blinds, 2020 Acrylic on muslin
124.5 x 96.5 x 4.4 cm
Simon Lee Gallery Contact Gallery
Deutsche Bank Wealth Management Lounge by Jim Shaw contemporary artwork painting, works on paper
Jim Shaw Deutsche Bank Wealth Management Lounge, 2020 Acrylic on muslin
81.3 x 106.7 x 4.4 cm
Simon Lee Gallery Contact Gallery
Study for Anal/Isis by Jim Shaw contemporary artwork works on paper, drawing
Jim Shaw Study for "Anal/Isis", 2012 Ink and pencil on paper
35.6 x 43.2 cm
Simon Lee Gallery Contact Gallery
Hair Deluge by Jim Shaw contemporary artwork drawing
Jim Shaw Hair "Deluge", 2012 Pencil and ink on paper
56.5 x 76.8 cm
Simon Lee Gallery Contact Gallery

Jim Shaw
recent exhibitions

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Jim Shaw
represented by

Gagosian contemporary art gallery in 980 Madison Avenue, New York, USA
Gagosian Athens, Basel, Beverly Hills, Geneva, Gstaad +6
Simon Lee Gallery contemporary art gallery in Hong Kong
Simon Lee Gallery Hong Kong, London
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Jim Shaw
in Ocula Magazine

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Jim Shaw
in video & audio

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