George Shaw

Overview

What I look for in art are the qualities I admire or don’t admire in human beings. And very rarely do I meet people who aren’t sentimental. I have no story, which is why I am a painter.

George Shaw's bases his detailed paintings on photographs of the proletarian suburbs, often taken by the artist himself and his family, or published in local magazines. His suburban landscapes, showing town halls, rows of garages, faded parks or playgrounds, are the result of a meticulous application of Humbrol enamel on wood, a process that results in attractive, brilliant and highly detailed images.

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Biography

I get perturbed by people who have meaningful epiphanies in expensive places – who go to India, Goa, New Zealand, watch a glorious sunset to find themselves. If you can’t find yourself in your own back yard, you’re not going to find yourself in the Serengeti, are you? So for me, it was taking those cliches of epiphany and the sublime and putting them in a place where great thoughts aren’t rumoured to happen.

George Shaw was born in 1966 in Coventry, UK.

He obtained his Bachelor of Fine Art at the Sheffield Polytechnic in 1989, as well as a Postgraduate Certificate in Education in 1992. Six years later, he successfully graduated with a Masters degree in Painting at the Royal College of Art, London.

George Shaw paints the outskirts and woods he grew up in with passion and fastidious realism. His paintings seemingly freeze a dramatic moment in time – whether it has just passed, is about to happen, or is happening right now. Any human presence is only declared...