Shane Walsh

Shane Walsh is an artist who makes paintings that combine historical abstraction with graphic imagery. He received his MFA from the University of Washington-Seattle and presently teaches painting and drawing at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee,while also serving as co-director of the Door County Contemporary art fair. He splits his time between his studios in Milwaukee and New York City and is represented by Asya Geisberg Gallery in New York. His work has been shown in solo and group shows at galleries and museums nationally and internationally. 

" My approach to painting functions as a form of collage, where I dissect and reconstruct various visual languages to arrive at a form of abstraction that is both autobiographical and historically aware. 

The work is fueled by an omnivorous appetite for visual culture, drawing from a wide array of references and techniques—including xeroxed zines, 1990s subcultures, television motion graphics, and early graffiti. These disparate elements are choreographed on the painting surface to create "Frankenstein-like" compositions that are melded but intentionally never seamless. 

I aim to move beyond simply restating the formal terms of abstraction. My goal is to reshape existing visual codes into a reinvented version of abstraction that is specific to my life experiences and relevant to the current time and place. "

-Shane Walsh