BA (hons) Fine Art

George Shaw is an artist who paints sublime landscapes that I like. They are of ordinary, everyday scenes – for example derelict places and housing schemes. He uses Humbrol paints which allow vivid colours in his work. They seem hyperreal. Either the dark areas merge into something homogenous, impenetrable, different and possibly scary or the heightened brightness of the colours gives an unreal glow. The overall effect makes me want to question what reality is and to see as strange our human constructions that are supposed to represent safety, home and the known. At the same time, his paintings are quite beautiful and celebrate the ordinary lifestyle. His work is sublime by emphasising the extraordinary in the ordinary, the sense of otherness.