yesterday i had the chance to meet Jim Shaw for his portrait for Vogue Hellas, regarding his exhibition “New Works” at Bernier/Eliades gallery. Loved his work. As the artist said, all those works in the exhibition derive from a single dream he had a couple of years ago:

“i was working on these shaped canvases and sculptures that had printed blowups of appliances and added elements such as expressionist drips, shirtless guys in pain, cartoon and Fauvist chickens, and cartoon elements [..] My LA dealer came in and said he wanted them all and i said no. There were elements of Bacon and the shirtless men referenced the Netter CIBA-Geigy medical illustrations and probably Longo. The shaped seemed to refer to the object on the cover of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Presence’. The Baileys had tried to get a group to buy their mansion, which was now on an island in the middle of the street in Danna Ruscha’s old neighborhood. Mike had also done a series of quick sketches for things like ‘repressed school memories game’ and an issue of Nat’l Geographic with an article on Nazism in rock”

my job upon waking was to figure out as best i could what the meanings and associations of the objects and images were.

Jim Shaw (b.1952 in Michigan USA) belongs to the generation of american artists that have shaped the cultural west coast of USA during the late 80’s till today. His work is interwoven with american pop culture elements that alternate in a structural context of narrative themes.  He is a conceptual artist known for playing cut & paste with styles ranging from minimalism to monster magazine  illustration, through several multipart, quasi-narrative projects.

The exhibition at  Bernier/Eliades Gallery will last until November 18th 2010.