Now is a crucial juncture in Sarah Shaw’s career and a fantastic time to invest. Interest in her work has continuously escalated since she graduated, with a solo show awarded next year at the Huddersfield Gallery in her hometown, and the solo show ‘Secret Histories’ just on at the Whistleblower gallery in Brighton – displaying an exciting new cycle of work. In 2022 a book of her paintings will be published. As well as being the recipient of the British Women Artists first prize in 2017, and selected winner by the University of Chichester in the Regional Fine Art Category (in the National Open Art Competition 2017) she has been short-listed for the Aesthetica, Jacksons and Threadneedle prizes among others notables in recent years. Since graduating, she’s had over 30 group shows as well as 8 solo, evidencing a solid interest in her work.
We’re not surprised that Sarah’s work is being increasingly sought after. It manifests some of the most enduring painterly qualities: vivacity of brushwork, subject matter that emerges tantalisingly from the abstract into human and animal figures, and a recent focus on intensely lucid colouring. Recently this has attracted a major commission of 16 works for an art hotel, and is collected by musicians Thom Yorke and Ronnie Wood. Through its sensitive attunement to oil paint’s nature, Sarah’s work recognises the forms – temporal, emotional, figurative – of our experience. Her paintings are a meeting – or as one title has it, a ‘happening’ – between elemental materials and the more complex beings that arise from them. It’s the painter’s process – striving, joyful – of perseverance in light of fleeting beauty. We are thrilled by her work, and delighted at the well-deserved traction it has gained .
Words by Maggie