Opening Reception: Friday, August 6, 6 - 9 p.m.
Gallery Talk and Closing Receptsion:
Friday, September 17, 6 - 9 p.m.
The ArtWorks Time Warner Cable Gallery presents printmaker and painter Thom Shaw's only exhibition in Cincinnati this year: A Choice of Weapon II.
The exhibition, which coincides with opening week of the Underground Railroad Freedom Center, opens on Friday August 6 with a reception from 6 -9 p.m. at the 20 E. Central Parkway Gallery (Downtown) and runs through Friday, September 17, 2004.
An admirer of both Japanese and German printmakers, Shaw's visual language is expressed through various media and is born from his desire to create "emphatic visual directness." As a master printmaker and painter, Shaw is "interested in working with the challenges and possibilities of the human figure as the chief paradigm in each piece."
His famously oversized relief prints and paintings (usually 40" x 60" in scale) reflect a universal human experience. Shaw exquisitely chronicles the social elements of human pain, survival, and day-to-day realities through his deeply meticulous attention to detail, expertise, and an amazingly profound sense of human compassion. He uses the backdrop of life to create self-portraits and community portraits that evoke visceral contemplation.
Shaw is a Cincinnati native whose work has presented in galleries such as the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, The Studio Museum of Harlem, New York, and the Jenewein Gallery in the Czech Republic.