TIM SHAW

(b. 1964)

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Tim Shaw’s sculpture and installation is often dualistic, incorporating current affairs, societal complexity and human conflict with ancient, mythical, metaphysical and primal concerns. Shaw’s powerful oeuvre connects these elements to create wider, timeless portraits of humanity. He is an artist schooled in the traditions of heavy metal casting and academic modelling, however his approach to materials and subjects is totally contemporary. He often creates environments which include sound, light and FX. The tension between tradition and the new, nowness and the ancient, between solidity and breakdown, is an organic part of his worldview, whether he’s looking at the atrocities of Abu Ghraib or the transgression or enlightenment of primitive ritual...

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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.