pt.2 Gallery presents an exhibition of paintings by Martha Shaw. Her first solo show, this body of work offers a survey of her artistic practice from the 1980’s to the present. Intimate in scale, Shaw’s intuitive paintings explore the abstraction of her everyday world, and at the same time, allude to something subterranean, beyond what meets the eye.
Shaw takes in her surroundings and extracts select painterly qualities. Every color, shape, shadow, and texture: the yellow hue of one house superimposed onto the form of another home’s west-facing window (“House with white curtains,” 2000). Her precise use of light captures a moment in this space where reality and imagination meet.
The artist’s application of her chosen medium, oil paint, further emphasizes the layered meaning of these compositions - is it a ship lost on a moonlit night, or rather, a formal yet moody exercise in the shape of the gaff rig? Shaw’s cobalt silhouette points to something deeper (“Silhouette,” 2001).
When viewing Shaw’s paintings, one can trace her pursuit to achieve a specific quality, like gleam, that requires the artist to dive into its inumerable variations. Each painting becomes a record of the artist’s carefully curated conditions of a subject. This intentionality is the hallmark of her practice.
The subtle themes of Shaw’s work challenge first impressions. These paintings invite viewers to take their time looking, to lose themselves in the mystery of Martha Shaw’s aesthetic realms. —Grace T. Weiss
