Alan Shields
Paula Cooper Gallery, New York (521 W 21st Str)
Chelsea | New York | USAPaula Cooper Gallery is pleased to announce a one-person exhibition of work by Alan Shields (1944–2005) at 521 West 21st Street. Shields, who showed with the gallery from 1968 to 1991, is known for his magnanimous fluency across painting, drawing, and sculpture, blurring these divisions through theatrical construction and unconventional mixed-media. On view from January 10th through February 16th, 2019, the exhibition will present works created in the first two decades of the artist’s career.
Throughout his life, Shields created unique and imaginative structures. Comprised of early works made between 1968 and 1984, the exhibition includes wall-mounted paintings, typed poetry, and freestanding or suspended objects layered with bright colors and loose geometric patterns. “His art is lushly, unabashedly decorative. Every one of his works implies an environment not just attractively livable, but also alive with sensuous impulses.” Shields brought to the decorative “not an overlay of theory designed to supply it with specialized art-world gravitas, but an energy that connects it to all that is vital and positive in the larger world where we spend most of our time.”
Shields’ monumental wall pieces—painted on unstretched canvas or woven textile—convey generosity and depth through an intimate application of yarn, beads, and swatches of stitched fabric. Mottled with vivid washes of acrylic paint, the works suggest the evanescent flux of atmosphere and light, which both transcends and embodies their material construction. On view in the reception area are four Typewriter drawings from 1968—early examples of Shields’ playful experimentation with poetry and form. Transcribing found texts (such as rules for Monopoly, or manufacturing details for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Colgate’s dental hygiene products), Shields arranges the excerpts in neat rectangles, concluding the verse with a list of resonating colors.
Paula Cooper Gallery is pleased to announce a one-person exhibition of work by Alan Shields (1944–2005) at 521 West 21st Street. Shields, who showed with the gallery from 1968 to 1991, is known for his magnanimous fluency across painting, drawing, and sculpture, blurring these divisions through theatrical construction and unconventional mixed-media. On view from January 10th through February 16th, 2019, the exhibition will present works created in the first two decades of the artist’s career.
Throughout his life, Shields created unique and imaginative structures. Comprised of early works made between 1968 and 1984, the exhibition includes wall-mounted paintings, typed poetry, and freestanding or suspended objects layered with bright colors and loose geometric patterns. “His art is lushly, unabashedly decorative. Every one of his works implies an environment not just attractively livable, but also alive with sensuous impulses.” Shields brought to the decorative “not an overlay of theory designed to supply it with specialized art-world gravitas, but an energy that connects it to all that is vital and positive in the larger world where we spend most of our time.”
Shields’ monumental wall pieces—painted on unstretched canvas or woven textile—convey generosity and depth through an intimate application of yarn, beads, and swatches of stitched fabric. Mottled with vivid washes of acrylic paint, the works suggest the evanescent flux of atmosphere and light, which both transcends and embodies their material construction. On view in the reception area are four Typewriter drawings from 1968—early examples of Shields’ playful experimentation with poetry and form. Transcribing found texts (such as rules for Monopoly, or manufacturing details for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Colgate’s dental hygiene products), Shields arranges the excerpts in neat rectangles, concluding the verse with a list of resonating colors.
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