Beefmaster artist Eric Shaw is exhibiting new work at the Yes Gallery in Brooklyn, New York.

Thursday July 1st
6-9 PM

The Yes Gallery
147 India St
Brooklyn, NY

For more information click here

Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba
Sithi uhm ingonyama

Eric Shaw thought he needed Eagle Scout, wanted Star, desired Life, First Class, or even Second Class, but with all sincerity Eric remains to this day a Tenderfoot. Forget knot tying (who ever said, a lion could tie a knot?), forget Totin’ Chip, forget being loyal; helpful, friendly, courteous; kind, obedient, cheerful; thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. Eric is nothing beyond the rank of Tenderfoot––a dweeb snuggling a flagpole in a damp, dewy field, lying half asleep in his tent, afraid of peepers.

Eric paints like a magpie builds its nest. Patting clay, twigs and offal together. Magpie’s nest can contain a disgusting assortment of items (stolen 100 Grand candy bar wrappers, ladies corsets, squirrel fetuses; jelly beans, fishing line, Styrofoam cups; ruptured condoms, Christmas lights), even its own shit. Anything Eric can find he’ll obsessively paint, exponentially reproducing each object (thighs, hot dogs, hair; shoes, splatters, baleen, and Jesus), until he grows tired of that object. Surely, a magpie would grow tired of Flemish red candy wrappers. Bird like man, Eric discards his brightly rendered gouached object after a few months, or even years, to be brought back into rotation once again. It’s the circle of life and it moves us all through despair and hope through faith and love. Till we find our place, on the path unwinding.

A tenderfoot, a lion(1), a magpie, Eric Shaw is all of these, as one can see through his drawings and paintings. Eric hopes to one day become a hippopotamus(2) in the art world, but will forever stay content as a Tenderfoot. Boy Scouts are global.

✌

(1)Lions may seem loyal, but their cubs will become grub if you touch them ☠
(2)Hippos love to eat humans, maybe even more than lions ☠