David Shaw’s work mines the domestic and cosmic, nature and science, craft and fine art. Shaw has had solo exhibitions with Jeff Bailey Gallery and Feature Inc. He is a recipient of the Peter S. Reed Foundation Award (2015) and the Nancy Graves Foundation Award for Visual Artists (2008). His work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, NY and the Artphilein Foundation in Vaduz, Liechtenstein. Shaw received his BA in Fine Arts from Colgate University in 1987. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Question:

Your sculpture is traditionally physical, fixed, still, silent, but many or your sources are in flux – water, the molecular, trees, etc.. Do you think that you are transforming the fluid into the solid and stable or do you see your sculpture as fluid as well, even though manifestly stationary?

Answer:

Good question, and it brings up an aspect of my work that I have considered since the beginning. Where does art reside: in the object, in its intention, or somewhere else entirely? This is what is fluid. So one of the very first pieces I ever made was an outdoor installation, “Olmsted” which you were meant to look through rather than at. This set the tone and became a guiding principle of my work. Everything, especially my art, is in a liminal state of becoming, a threshold state. I believe everything is in flux. I mean, we all do, right? We are way past the particle/wave dialectic in quantum mechanics, and all philosophies, especially physics, are indeterminate to say the least. So I do try to make objects that stand resolute while bringing up questions of change, chaos, and the emotional implications of psychic rupture.

David Shaw, Lee, 2009, wood, glass, 41 x 38 x 51 inches

I am interested in the edges of systems, the threshold areas and liminal spaces, where things breakdown and accidents happen, where something can be there and not there at the same time, forming and dissolving, in a state of flux, raw and vulnerable. The holographic laminate I use makes my sculpture seem as if we can move through the surface of the object, as if there is more there there, inside, and it has a refractive quality that references scientific and natural processes like synaptic activity.  This all begins a dialogue between surface and interiority that takes on physical, formal, maybe even spiritual dimensions.

David Shaw, Crack, 2009, wood, steel, holographic laminate, flocking, paint, 19.25 x 24 x 23.5 inches

And I do have a strong relationship with the concept of fluidity. In a lot of my work I am freeze framing the image of what should be in constant motion. Sculpting a fluid state allowed me to contemplate what I see as happening all around me all the time: change, chaos, rupture, entropy, and by working with blown glass, I had a chance to address what I see as some of the problems surrounding knowledge and consciousness, most notably naming.  I am most interested in the moment before conscious identification occurs.

David Shaw, Single (detail), 2013, wood, mirror, hand blown glass, 89” x 49” x 51”