Lauren Carly Shaw
Lauren Carly Shaw (she/her) (American, b.1986) is an artist based in upstate New York. Lauren has been experimenting with mold making, life casting, and various sculpture techniques for 20+ years. She is deeply interested in the human body and makes work that pushes the boundaries of what a human body is, or could be.
Ouroborus (monopod #3), 2022, Aqua resin, acrylic nails, epoxy, 42 x 16 x 49 inches
PP: Do you work in collaboration with other artists/ creators and how so?
LCS: I love to work with other artists and creators and hope to do more collaborative work in the future. I think big, both conceptually and physically. The sculpture and installation work I make is usually at least life sized and somewhat ambitious. Often when starting a project I realize I know about 25% of how to do what I want to do and thus need to learn from and collaborate with people who are skilled and knowledgeable in ways I am not. I enjoy exploring the potential of new mediums but also recognize where the learning curve is. In graduate school I made a life sized cast glass marionette. Following that I spent a few years working on augmented reality installation and sculpture. All of that required me to engage glass blowers, models, animators, camera workers, body painters and additional hands. There is no way I could have made those pieces alone. I am so impressed and inspired by artists who work in different media than I do and respect that it takes a lot of time and effort to master different crafts. If I want some aspect of my work (that I do not know how to create) to present at a certain level, I will look for someone who to work with can do it better than I can alone. Additionally, the main crux of my work is making life casts which innately has a collaborative spirit. I cherish when people are generous enough to lend me their likeness. I think there is strength in community and that no artist is an island. That being said, I do have somewhat hermity studio tendencies and when I'm into a project, I will spend long hours alone in the studio.
Ouroborus (monopod #3), 2022, Aqua resin, acrylic nails, epoxy, detail
PP: What do you aim to say through your work?
LCS: I am interested in the body and its evolutions. My work is an investigation into the ways in which the human body mutates and changes. There is an interesting uncanny line in figurative sculpture work that questions objectness and sentience. I call the most recent works 'hypothetical evolutions' and I hope these surreal objects invite questions of agency, politics and reliance on the form as an identifier to my viewers. I aim to make work that is approachable yet unsettling, grotesque yet inviting, human but not. When people experience my work I want them to want to ask questions, as in how did this human come to be like this? I like the idea of them being thought of as pieces that might be in a natural history museum in the future; a representation of the mutations of the past. The pieces are decidedly post-human but the innate connection is that there is some undeniable recognizable human element to the form. Once you experience that you can then begin to think about how and why the surreal evolutions may have happened and how those changes would serve one's identity, resilience, abilities and survival.
Hairy ladies, 2016-2018, synthetic hair, cardboard, fiberglass
PP: What is your process for critiquing your own work?
LCS: This is a really tricky topic for me. I am in this perpetual state of critique, constantly questioning my choices with form, color, materials, space, environment, and presentation. I can become hypercritical and that forces me to jump around a bit. I get obsessive when trying to make something smooth and refined and I am a little bit of a perfectionist so it's hard for me to know when to step away. A lot of my work takes a generous amount of time to evolve. Sometimes I get really excited about a concept or idea I have and during the fabrication phase the idea totally changes and I'm forced to step back and reconsider the reasons I have for what I am making. Those pieces can live in my studio for years without resolution and then suddenly be relevant to something I am working towards again. Since I think faster than I can make, I sometimes conceptually move on before I've finished the physical piece I was working on. For example, I have three mannequins I made a few years ago hanging out in my studio that I finally have a solid idea for finishing. It takes work and I am actively trying to be a less harsh critic of myself, relax and just have more fun with the work.
Standing hair lady, 2018, synthetic hair, cardboard, 12 x 26 x 77 in
PP: What would a dream project look like for you as an artist?
LCS: Again, I think big and have tons of ambitious large scale ideas on deck that I'm trying to figure out how to make! I have a few ideas for some large scale public sculpture by really scaling up some of the smaller works I have made. I'm drawn to the idea of a giant immersive, sculpture centric installation. I am really inspired by the unsettling installation work of Ugo Rondinone and would love to do a large scale installation with multiple cast figures, climbing up walls, over each other, and potentially interacting. It would be really fun to collaborate with a choreographer or dancers and layer in some augmented reality or kinetic aspects onto that type of installation. Additionally, there is a farm close to where I live (Kelder's Farm in Accord, NY) that has one of the world's largest garden gnomes and I would love to make a larger companion sculpture that a passerby could interact with, climb through etc. I drive by it everyday and think often how fun a project like that would be to materialize.
Shaw’s work has been shown internationally, including exhibitions at Cleo the Gallery (Savannah, GA), Paradice Palase (Brooklyn, NY), Lauren Powell Projects (Hollywood, LA), Wave Hill Sunroom Project Space, (Bronx, NY), and a three-person exhibition at Postmasters Gallery (TriBeCa, NY) among others.
To reach Lauren or learn more about her work, see her instagram and website.