Selected by Alex Logsdail

Gallery-C is pleased to present an exhibition of new works by English artist Dan Shaw-Town. Entitled Drawings, the exhibition will run from the 3rd of September through the 3rd of October. Gallery-C is an autonomous project space located within the walls of Team Gallery in New York, 83 Grand Street, between Wooster and Greene.

Shaw-Town’s practice originates in the appropriation of everyday objects in which he re-examines their uses and aesthetic possibilities, often reworking them to represent something that they are not. In this new body of work Shaw-Town approaches the practice of drawing with this same ideology and begins to blur the lines between the two and three-dimensional.

The word ‘Drawing’ itself sits strangely, at once retaining a quaint specificity yet representing so many betweens that it can only be thought of as a general term. It is of course often used as a preliminary tool, as in the sketch, or a traditional technique employed to record or document. It is therefore no coincidence that the aesthetic Shaw-Town adopts often feels like just the beginning or indeed the leftovers of a bigger event. The work seems to suggest the potential of performance, as the slippery composition of his works appear almost as ‘kits’; however the function of the ‘kit’ remains fundamentally abstract, and it is soon obvious that participation is not a suggestion. Although things have been placed with delicate precision, they retain a sense of the spontaneous, however this spontaneity has been rehearsed time and time again.

The positioning of each object in the composition of a work is never final; the works are in a constant state of flux and can be rearranged in multiple configurations. Folds can be opened, crumpled sheets flattened, objects moved. Any adjustment made to the composition reveals labor that has gone into the making of a piece that was not previously viewable. The internal surface created by the folding of paper contains markings that become hidden, in essence making much of the drawing invisible. There is always a weighted suggestion that something is filling this unseen space even if the viewer cannot confirm that this is the case.

This entropic system of making and changing is visible in the works labored surface. These Drawings bring to mind the attributes of sculpture, that of physical exertion and dirty hands, the result of actions, constructing, bending, rolling and adorning. It seems the notion of the ‘makeover’ has often been too much of a temptation, as the works show visible traces caused by the endless efforts to re-group and try again.

Dan Shaw-Town has exhibited his work since 2004 and had his first solo show in London in 2008. He has been included in many group shows internationally and his work in held in several international collections including the Zabludowicz Collection. He was the winner of the Roley Prize for Fine Art in 2006 and the BAA Expo initiative, Public Sculpture Award in 2008. This will be the first time that Shaw-Town has exhibited his work in the USA.