Kate Shaw

Kate Shaw is a Melbourne-based artist who creates landscapes that are simultaneously sublime and toxic. Formed out of ‘paint pours’ and collage techniques, her landscapes capture the transcendent beauty of nature; the swirls of acrylic paint, ink, glitters and powders mimic the flow of natural processes. But underlying these psychedelic scenes are hints of pollution and artificiality, inducing anything from wonder to discomfort. This intersection of creation and corruption in Shaw’s alchemical creations teases out our conflicted relationship with nature – a relationship fraught with awe and fear, closeness and distance.

Kate Shaw’s recent solo exhibitions include Turner Galleries, Perth (2015), PointB, New York, (2014), Fehily Contemporary, Melbourne (2014), ART 14, London (2014), The Cat Street Gallery, Hong Kong (2014), Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria (2014), Auckland Art Fair, Sullivan+Strumpf Fine Art, Sydney (2011) and Nellie Castan Gallery, Melbourne (2011). Recent group exhibitions include Art15, London (2015), Viscopy John Fries Memorial Prize, Gaffa Gallery, Sydney (2012), Blindside, Melbourne (2012), UQ Museum, Queensland, (2011) and KIAF, Seoul, Korea (2011).

Shaw has been a finalist in the Gold Award (2012), Wynne Prize (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012) ABN AMRO Emerging Art Award (2007, 2010), The Fisher Ghost Prize (2008), John Leslie Prize (2008, 2012) and was the winner of Artists Wanted Year in Review 2011, Painting category (New York, 2012). She has received grants from Arts Victoria and the Australian Council for the Arts and has had residencies at 24hrArtspace, Darwin, Flux Factory, New York and Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne. Her work is held in Artbank, RACV, Macquarie Bank, Rockhampton Art Gallery, Queensland University Museum collections, as well as in many private collections throughout Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom.