CONVERGING INFLUENCES:

In Adam Shaw's paintings Western tradition meets Eastern sensibilities

Adam Shaw's work combines abstract tradition with a sensibility to the present moment that is the result of an affinity for Eastern spiritual teachings. " It is no coincidence that Eastern philosophy and art came to the West at the same time that abstract painting was deconstructing the visual terrain which had characterized Western painting for centuries," says Shaw.

His paintings have lush surfaces built up over the course of 3 to 5 years or more, and a luminous tension that evokes a deep emotional response in the viewer. "I want to make paintings that are as compelling from six inches away as they are from 25 feet," says the artist , a native New Yorker who has lived in Northern California for 25 years. The work has a strong narrative component, related, perhaps, to the fact that Shaw spent many years writing and translating poetry from Greek, Latin, Russian and Italian. He also spent 15 years as a chiropractor, and working with his hands in that way has loaned itself to the sensual, textural nature of his paintings.

Although he has a strong affinity for abstraction, in no way does he dismiss so called traditional painting. "I'm obsessed with the history of painting," he says , "and Malaysian as to the possibilities for the future of painting. If you're serious about yourwork you have to bring to it a sense of responsibility, a striving to be part of a tradition." This is nowhere more evident in his oeuvre than in his latest body of work at Patricia Carlisle. Many of the paintings are strongly evocative of landscape, of trees, of water, of fire.

Shaw's work is constantly evolving, refining and redefining itself. "It is tempting once you arrive at a style or an image in your work to stop there and spend the next 20 years making the same painting, but for me that would be an artistic death,' he says. "The work always has to be somehow ahead of me. Once a viewer can wrap his mind around a painting it dies. For a work to succeed it must always be a mystery, no matter how much time you spend with it."

These are paintings characterized by bold application of paint. The artist uses brushes, sticks, hands, rags and "anything else I can think of" to get the paint onto the canvas, The works are made on the easel, on the floor, inside the studio and outside where the paint is allowed to bake in the sun.

Despite the labor intensive process involved in making his paintings for Shaw the most crucial aspect of their construction is the state of attention which can sometimes be reached after hours in the studio. "It's a state that occurs outside of time. That's where the real magic is."

by Hiro Miyamoto