2009 KATE SHAW: MERIDIAN
EXHIBITION IMAGES
My work is concerned with a notion of transformation that links the material
world and the psychological self. Transformative physical environments, such as
a lava flows, ice melts and even the slow gnarled growth of a tree, are mimicked
in the flow of paints and pigments and make evident this macro/micro
relationship. Regardless of climate change the earth has never been still. I am
attracted to unusual forms that challenge clichéd notions of what the idea of
nature and a landscape is. Whenever I look really closely at the natural
environment I am amazed by the things I have never seen before and haven’t
really seen depicted before. Many of the titles of my works allude on one level to
climate change, but they also just allude to change on a physical, psychological
and individual level.
Kate Shaw 2008
Kate Shaw graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Fine Arts) Honours at RMIT
University in Melbourne in 1994 before completing a Diploma of Museum Studies
at Deakin University in 1997.
For the last 15 years Shaw has exhibited in a number of group shows within
Australia and internationally including The Ides of March, ABC NO RIO, New York;
Singular, Luxe Gallery, New York; FIAC 2006 at the Grand Palais in the Louvre, Paris;
Places, Luxe Gallery, New York in 2007. In 2007 Shaw exhibited in and co-curated
(with Larissa Hjorth) the Arts Victoria funded group exhibition U-turn at The
Glendale College of Art Gallery, Los Angeles in 2007. She has also held several solo exhibitions in Australia and the USA.
In 2008 she had two studio residencies, the first in Brooklyn, New York, and then in Darwin at 24hr Art where she also held an exhibition. In 2008 Shaw was a finalist in the Fleurieu Biennale, and her work
was also included in the New York LUXE gallery’s offering for the CIGE art fair in
Beijing. In 2007 she was highly commended in the ABN Amro Emerging Artist
Award, was a finalist at the Fisher’s Ghost Award and received an Arts Victoria
International Fund Export & Touring Grant. Her work is held in Artbank’s collection
as well as numerous private collections in Australia, America and the UK.
Shaw’s acrylic and resin landscape works are breathtakingly beautiful and act
as both a sublime celebration of the environment we live in and as an important
reminder of our loosening grasp upon it.