TIM SHAW
INTRODUCTION :
The first edition of Tim Shaw’s award winning monumental sculpture ‘Man On Fire’ is now permantely installed in the collection of the Imperial War Museum North in front of the museum’s Libeskind building. The work, cast into bronze, was unveiled in July 2023.
‘Man On Fire’ was originally conceived in response to the US-led invasion of Iraq. Larger than life in scale at 4 x 4 x 2.5 m, it captures the horrific moments of a figure on fire, caught in conflict. The sculpture is a powerful image of contemporary conflict and compassionately relates to the human cost of war. Originally shaped by photographs of a soldier diving for his life from a burning armoured vehicle during a riot in Basra, Iraq 2005, ‘Man on Fire’ bears witness to the universal horror of war. War is time old, and conflict does not discriminate between gender, age or country. Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, testifies to the fact that we continually repeat the same tragic mistakes.
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BIOGRAPHY :
Tim Shaw is a British artist, born in Belfast, he currently lives in Cornwall. He was elected an Academician at The Royal Academy in 2013 and made a Fellow of The Royal British Society of Sculptors and a Fellow of Falmouth University the same year. Shaw has had a number of significant solo shows throughout the UK, Ireland and internationally including the major public solo exhibitions ‘Beyond Reason’ at San Diego Museum of Art and ‘What Remains’ and ‘Something is Not Quite Right’ a collaboration between The Exchange and Anima Mundi, ‘Mother the Air is Blue, The Air is Dangerous’ was held in the F.E McWilliam Gallery in Northern Ireland, ‘Black Smoke Rising’ toured from Mac Birmingham to Aberystwyth Arts Centre and Back From the Front presents: Shock and Awe – Contemporary Artists at War and Peace at the Royal West of England Academy. He has undertaken a number of public commissions including ‘The Rites of Dionysus’ for The Eden Project, ‘The Minotaur’ for The Royal Opera House and ‘The Drummer’ for Lemon Quay, Truro. A more political side to his work became evident in a number of sculptures responding to the issues of terrorism and The Iraq War. ‘Tank on Fire’ was awarded the selectors prize at the inaugural Threadneedle Prize in 2008 and the installation ‘Casting a Dark Democracy’ was reviewed in 2008 by Jackie Wullschlager of The Financial Times as ‘The most politically charged yet poetically resonant new work on show in London’. ‘Man on Fire’ was winner of the Jack Goldhill Awards for Sculpture at the RA Summer Show in 2015 and later acquired for the permanent collection of Imperial War Museum North. It was unveiled in 2023 and won the PSSA Marsh Award for Excellence in Public Sculpture in 2024. Shaw has been supported by the Kappatos Athens Art Residency, The Kenneth Armitage Foundation, The British School of Athens,The Delfina Studio Trust through residencies in Greece, Spain and a fellowship in London. Most recently as an Artist Fellow at the Kate Hamburger Centre for Advanced Study in the Humanities of ‘Law and Culture’ In Bonn, Germany where he began work on ’The Birth of Breakdown Clown’ an existential sculptural work utilising sculpture, robotics and AI.