James Shaw
James Shaw is a designer and a maker exploring the material landscape in a hands on way. His work aims to interrogate the material, systemic and formal approaches to the creation of objects. Frequently his work considers the resources around us challenging the notion of ‘waste’ to create new beautiful materials. He is probably most well known for his work with waste plastics, hand extruding blobby, gloopy and baroque forms trying to create an unexpected form from a familiar and problematic material.
James’ work is in the permanent collections of MoMA, The V&A, The Montreal Museum of Art, The Design Museum Ghent and The Museum of London among others.
James Shaw
31 W x 8 D x 35 H in/ 80 W x 20 D x 88 H cm
Walnut TImber, Kodak Yellow Polypropylene, Polished Aluminium
2020
Wood, metal and plastic have been the holy trinity of the material landscape, the archetypal textures of ‘good taste’ and modernism. In these works James Shaw references the mid twentieth century period of design and modernism where the current malaise of our usage of material was set. Polished metal and the smooth beauty of walnut timber are combined with the grotesque gloopyness of melted plastic. Particularly apt is that the plastic used is actually reclaimed from granulated ‘kodak yellow’ film canisters discovered in an old north London factory, alluding to Kodachrome, the excitement of a world in colour as expressed in the Paul Simon song.