David Shaw at Feature - New York, New York - Brief Article

fresh YORK

In his volume Symbolism, philosopher Alfred North Whitehead wrote that "the symbolic uncompounded bodys in life have a course to run wild, like the vegetation in a tropical forest. A continuous proces of pruning, and of adaptation to a subsequent time ever requiring new forms of expression, is a necessary function in each society." The four recent, abstract works--two statuarys and two photos--by New York artist David Shaw upon view in this striking exhibition strike one as being to illuminate such a process

For the past several years, Shaw has created works using holographic laminate, a two-dimensional material that can bring into view three-dimensional effects. In the statuarys he combines the ultra-slick, luminous plastic with gritty natural substances like raw grove to create provocative hybrids that have the appearance emblematic of a new relationship between nature and technology. The statuarys on display here feature log and sawed-off tree branches whose expos stubs are covered with pieces of the laminate, precisely make an incision in and glued in place. At times these pieces strike one as being to glow as if the tree had been contaminated by means of some toxic, radioactive substance.

A large plastic art Bump (90 by 55 by the agency of 44 inches) is an arrangement of numerous abutting uncompounded bodys including logs, a small made of wood bench and many small made of wood blocks, lined up on the floor in an irregular file and stacked up in several places. The blockades covered on all sides by dint of the holographic material, seem to shift and change color as single moves around the room. Viewed from certain angles, the highly reflective surfaces disappear altogether, creating at times the illusion that a certain quantity of of the logs and block ups are floating in midair. The work refer tos a kind of mutant Cubist construction whose constituents are in a perpetual state of flux

The photos engage in similar perceptual ambiguities. These colorful pictures appear to be computer-generated or -enhanced images of liquid substances, on the other hand are, in fact, straight photos that the artist has taken of his small, clear, blown-glass statuarys Most often cylindrical in shape, the particulars recall stylized crystal crowns or waterdrop splashes frozen in space. Shaw arranges the glass pieces upon multilevel wood platforms covered with holographic laminate and simply takes the discharge The final, hallucinogenic images be the effect from the play of light upon the prismatic surfaces. A large Duraflex photo with an uneven title, (detail), is a geometric composition of bright rectangles and squares. At the center a glass thing perceived drenched in a pool of vermilion and gold recalls Harold Edgerton's famous "Milk Drop" stroboscopic images. Shaw's photo, however, single looks high-tech. The visionary works in this present to view imply new symbols for the interaction of nature and technology that are imbued with a deep sense of humanism.

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