Sterling Shaw: An Emerging Artist
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US
By Emily Eichhorn-Nye

Sterling Shaw is an artist whose work astounds and amazes, but, in common with all his contemporaries at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, he is still struggling, as an emerging artist, to find that crucial balance between survival and managing to do what he loves while he waits for his chance to conquer the world. Almost four years after graduation he is still looking for a way through.

The art world is always looking for new talent. With a market that is enamored of contemporary art, there are always collectors and dealers looking to create the next big name. But how does a talented young artist get an edge over the competition.

Shaw’s work combines the sensuality of paint with an other-worldliness that reminds me of Surrealist ideals. He fuses high art techniques and the media in a unique way. Even his titles are an integral part of the work, sometimes providing a clue to his imagery but always adding their own dimension. A perfect example is Erotic Art, 2006. Two disembodied feet are depicted in a muted palette applied with care. The result is an eroticism suggested by the title and the delicate application of paint, and a strange morbidity created by choice of palette. The rendering of the medium gives a sculptural quality to the painting.

All his work contrasts a flatly painted background with a three dimensional element in the figure. Chance of Showers, 2006, and New Growth, 2006, both acrylic on canvas are good illustrations of this: the figures leap out from the canvas, demanding the viewers attention.

Shaw’s modern interpretations of strong, Rubensesque women have no desire to imitate past masters but confidently create, through his connection to the canvas, a new poetry. At first glance Shaw’s limbless female figures might suggest a degree of misogyny, but in reality his figures are inspired by the broken sculptures surviving from ancient Greece. His obvious appreciation of the sumptuous female form diminishes the needy insecure images of the women so glibly depicted in commercial advertising. He is clearly a talented visionary artist.

What options are open to an emerging talent like Shaw? Plastering his name all over billboards, as Judy Holliday does in the film “It Should Happen to You’, comes to mind! A new artist based outside the leading cities of the art market is at a disadvantage, none more so than the figurative artist. Being based in Philadelphia where the art market is relatively conservative dictates that while his figurative work is readily admired it is rarely bought.

Shaw is not the only artist who should be able to support himself through his amazing gift, who deserves to be bought and sold at prestigious art fairs and galleries. He already shows great maturity for someone as yet untested on the world market. Many talented new artists raise our thoughts, illuminate our lives, give us hope and new insights. Who will decide which of them will flourish? Will Shaw’s name be one of those chosen to reach a wider audience? I hope so, but only time will tell.

Emily Eichhorn-Nye

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