TEXTURA: Shawn Shepherd solo exhibition

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Shawn Shepherd "Appliqué # 21"

Shawn Shepherd "Appliqué # 21" 12" x 12"

TEXTURA

Opening May 27 12-3pm

Closing June 21

www.polychromefinearts.com

Shawn Shepherd solo exhibition of appliqués.

For six years Shawn Shepherd has been carefully cutting pieces of lettering from found felt pennants and hand stitching them together onto felt backing. The resulting appliqués are reminiscent of his explorations in other mediums utilizing text   in their graphic appearance. These colourful works demand an intimate view, evoking references from graffiti and skateboarding to tourist towns and hockey teams.

Statement

The introduction of recycled felt pennant appliqué work to my oeuvre began in 2006 when I was ridding my life of numerous small collections. Since the first four works I hand stitched together that year, the appliqués have slowly evolved into a collection which is varied in size, appearance, and shape. Working with secondhand materials which need to be first collected lacks the immediacy of painting but sewing by hand is a quiet, clean and cozy thing to do in the wintertime.

Much of the work I have produced over the last decade is based on a culmination of ideas which explore type-written information, and/or recycling, and the effects of post imaging. My process often utilizes the dissection & compaction of printed text and the displacement, rearrangement, simplification and proportional shifts of the familiar. Consumer culture discards are converted into visual poetry.

Shawn Shepherd