SCRAPS - SHAWN MARSHALL
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REVIEW
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by Kevin Nance
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The universe is a complex and mysterious place, full of things we mostly can’t see because they’re too small (cells, molecules, atoms) or too far away (distant planets, stars, galaxies). To visualize such things we need microbiologists, physicists, astronomers and their sophisticated instruments, but even they have their limits. What of worlds that might be there, if only in our imagination? For this we need artists like Shawn Marshall.
In “Scraps,” Marshall’s colorfully swirling solo exhibit of abstract mixed media panels presented by Arts Connect at Central Bank’s John G. Irvin Gallery, the Kentucky-based artist is candid about her subject matter. In collages that combine painting, drawing, stencils and strategically placed strips or swatches of found paper, newsprint, fabric, Mylar and other materials, Marshall seems to be composing a sort of visual speculative fiction—a graphic novel of sorts—about the nature of the world at both the macro and micro level. |
In paired pieces with titles like “Cosmic Circle,” “Cosmic Groove,” “String Theory,” “Nova” and “Stardust,” she imagines matter as a series of busy, shambolic landscapes whose colliding patches of color (often complementary shades of red and blue or green and yellow) shift, float, overlap, dovetail. In many of these scenes, the viewer seems to be looking at these roiling miasmas through a matrix or lattice of patterned blue, the whole of existence caught in a web. In “Dream Weaver,” “Illusion of Memory” and “Blame It on My Youth,” Marshall seems to turn her gaze toward interior landscapes, metaphorical and temporal.
There’s a consistency of approach in this large suite of works that’s either cohesive or, if you’re so inclined, a bit repetitive. Marshall’s best compositions, to my mind, are not her widely strewn fields of amorphous shapes but, rather, those most tightly focused on a few central elements. In “Drifting” and “Levitating,” for example, my eye rested on bits of large text and patches of yellow aligned on a loosely quartered grid that seems to recall the artist’s background in architecture; the cohesion and compactness of these works (both 12 by 12 inches) make them the gems of this sprawling show, and at $400 each the most affordable at that. I also love “Totem” and the delightful “Candy Trip” (both 24x18), whose diverse yet balanced elements achieve a kind of harmonic convergence. |
Cosmic Groove 1
String Theory 1
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Drifting
Blame it on my Youth
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Cosmic Gro0ve 2
String Theory 2
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