Artist Statement
I’ve found through my work, that there is a bridge between what’s visible with the eye, and what can’t be readily seen.
In my practise, I’ve developed a unique technique that heightens my awareness and allows me to tap into a form of waking dreaming. I use this method every time I touch canvas, paper, printing stones and plates.
When I step into the studio, I release any preconceived ideas of how to work. During the weeks, often months it can take to complete a work, I take direction from the painting. By relaxing and allowing the painting to develop without conscious inference, something I haven’t seen before emerges.
I paint in layers, and as the 20, 30, often 40 layers of glazes develop, light will refract and the painting will change each time you view it. Sometimes I turn the painting upside down and sideways to paint. It’s the unpredictability and imperfections that transform the finished piece into something that sings its own song.
With each stroke of the brush, I bridge the gap between the conscious and the unconscious, weaving together the threads of the dream realm and the tangible world. It is the pulsating natural world that I paint, the earth as alive, changing and always responding to human actions.
My paintings serve as portals, inviting viewers to step into the space where imagination and reality intertwine. I hope to ignite a spark of curiosity and contemplation, to inspire a deeper connection with the living earth that surrounds us. By acknowledging the Earth's responsiveness, we can forge a more symbiotic relationship, one that honors the interconnected web of life and ensures a thriving future for generations to come.
2022 LBIF Show
Esther Adler, MOMA curator
Sandpiper review, April 20, 2022
Dawn Reaching Up to Touch the Sky: Near the front entrance is Sloat Shaw's Unique stone lithograph and monoprint, 'Dawn Reaching Up to Start the Day.' In a chat with Whitlock, Shaw said making art is about creating a language and using an artistic voice.
The 24th annual National Juried Competition: Works on Paper, at the Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences in Loveladies N.J. is a playground for the imagination, filled with sumptuous shapes and textures, abstract and representational.
Seventy one works were selected from over a thousand submissions from across the United States. Juror Ester Adler is curator in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the Museum of Modern Art.
About the jury process for the Exhibition, Adler said, "I found myself looking for beauty in these submissions, not simply on an aesthetic level, but rather in the shared commitment to the creation of art as a way for artists to understand and shape the world. I was not disappointed."
If the juror's choices collectively make a statement, the individual artworks. are the punctuation.
Drawings and paintings on paper, hand-pulled prints, collages, photographs, digital works and paper constructions are thin slices of the human experience. Most are behind glass; some are unframed, exposed, highlighting the substrate's fragility. Paper, like people, is temporary. The print catalog of the full exhibition will be available April 25, 2022.
Sandpaper review by Victoria Ford April 20, 2022 r
Publications
