George Shaw: My Back to Nature

Beautiful exhibition at the National Gallery by artist in residence George Shaw.

The work reflects on mythical woodland pictures in the collection and shows what is left behind by the modern behaviour which mirrors that it the old pictures, violence, sex and drinking. For example one picture was of a wonderful forest with three wine bottles left on the group, also the wittily titled “The Tossed” of discarded torn up porn magazines in a wood.

I also liked some pictures of a large piece of blue tarpauling in the forest where the swathe of blue, painted in glossary enamel paint, cuts across the green. The commentary also pointed out the Christian imagery in the pictures where the trees branches form Crucifix images as well as how they also refer back to the imagery in German art of the forest as a space of strangeness and otherness.

There was also a wonderful set of sketches of a large naked man in various poses in the  foyer of the exhibition.

Closed on 30 October 2016.

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