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Sarah Shaw

Notable Achievements 2021
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Sarah Shaw is a British painter whose enigmatic oil paintings inhabit a liminal space between figuration and abstraction. Her process involves constant redefinition, driven by an ongoing dialogue between herself and the canvas. Shaw builds up and strips away layers, exploring diverse painterly languages before reducing her works to their essence.

Animals frequently appear as vital embodiments of nature's dynamism, which Shaw's instinctive brushwork is inextricably part of. Recent series like "Diableries" (2022) renew her focus on excavating color from familiar contexts to be reappraised with a stark lucidity. Temporality is portrayed through the materiality of paint itself, traversing stages of being and leaving behind traces of varying opacity and texture.

Since graduating from Falmouth University with a first class honors degree in 1999, Shaw has exhibited extensively. Her prolific output encompasses over 30 group shows globally as well as 8 solo exhibitions. Notable solo presentations include "Secret Histories: Excavations in Paint" at the Whistleblower Gallery in Brighton (2021) and "ARCANA" at the same gallery in London (2022).

Shaw has received prestigious accolades like the British Women Artists first prize (2017) and been shortlisted for the Aesthetica, Jacksons, and Threadneedle prizes. In 2021, she secured a major commission creating 16 paintings for an art hotel in Pembrokeshire, Wales. Shaw's work resides in the private collections of celebrated musicians such as Thom Yorke.

Her paintings represent the enduring vitality of the medium as a visceral, visual language. They are "happenings" where elemental materials coalesce into fleeting moments of revelation through the artist's joyful perseverance.