Peter Saul/Jim Shaw
Drawings

5 January to 23 February 2013
745 Fifth Avenue

PETER SAUL / JIM SHAW

On 5 January 2013, Mary Boone Gallery will open at its Fifth Avenue location an exhibition of works on paper by PETER SAUL and JIM SHAW. The exhibition has been organized by writer and curator Klaus Kertess. Works by Jim Shaw are courtesy of Metro Pictures, New York.

Peter Saul and Jim Shaw are two of the more idiosyncratic artists who are currently keeping the flame of figurative art alive. The indefatigable veteran Peter Saul has created an ever-changing style. Never concerned about political correctness, Saul has given life to an evolving cartoon mode, expertly drawn and rendered in meticulously painted near DayGlo gaseousness. His subjects range from a raving Stalin about to execute a platoon of enemy soldiers to a Self-Portrait as a Woman, 2006, in which a doctor can be seen with a vacuum sucking up the subject’s right arm. In the same year, he created an Execution of Jesus. His drawings are as meticulously and expertly finished as his paintings. He knows how to disperse a refined and lively drawing style.

Jim Shaw’s lyrically rendered drawings exist in an enigmatic dream space. His figures often look like relatives of the denizens occasionally found in Magritte’s mysterious places and faces. He has drawn delicate half faces that look as though they have been sliced in half and are melting into the floor boards upon which they were drawn. Or he might focus on a scene featuring a strange beast with a coat that seems to have been printed digitally. In two just completed drawings he has added wiry naked warriors to The Battle of Cascina as seen alternately by da Vinci and Michelangelo.

The exhibition, at 745 Fifth Avenue, will continue through 23 February 2013. For further assistance, please contact Ron Warren at the Gallery, or visit our website www.maryboonegallery.com.