Dressed

The series

The tie as an alchemical bonding agent between the painting, artist, and viewer — a front-loaded memory trigger. Most works are 48 × 48 in., with occasional outliers. Underlying abstractions were made mostly between 1999 and 2009, with earlier works reaching back to 1971.

In 2013 Shaw was moving one of the 1971 paintings and a number of his neckties at the same time, and saw how a single tie fit the painting in an uncanny and evanescent way, extending the alchemy already at work in the abstraction. Sorting through some fifty ties he had bought and worn, thirty found their painting — one tie to one canvas, draped down the face of the work and secured behind it. The tie bond is alchemical rather than material.

The tie adds volume in the physical sense. Seen from the side, the paintings unfold like a science fiction landscape and make you more conscious of your body. They are loud. They have been turned up.