Johnathan Shahn solos at the Noyes Museum of Art

Written by Keith Robinett Friday, 11 February 2011 00:15

 

OCEANVILLE, N.J. – New Jersey sculptor Jonathan Shahn opens a solo exhibition on November 16 at the Noyes Museum of Art in Oceanville, N.J. The exhibition, titled Jonathan Shahn: Imaginary Portraits, includes sculpted heads, human forms and figures. Working primarily in wood, Shahn literally creates expressions of life - drawing inspiration from classical busts and sculptures, which he merges with faces of people he knows. The sculptures will be on display through January 6, 2008.

Shahn has been creating sculptures and drawings representing the human figure since the early 1960s. His life-sized sculptures, carved from enormous wood blocks or formed from plaster, express the honesty and simple elegance of the human figure. Suggestive of Picasso and Giacometti, Shahn’s oversized heads, often perched on elongated or thick neck-like pedestals or placed within boxes, function as portraits of common people. He prefers to work with wood because it is a “slower, more resistant” material that allows his figures to evolve naturally, but he is also known for his smooth plaster sculptures. Most of his wooden sculptures are completed over months. The rough-hewn figures sometimes receive a paraffin coat or brush marks that the artist describes as “directional patterns” and “anatomical suggestions,” implying African, Egyptian and medieval art that is both classical and clean.

In a recent interview in Logos, a journal of modern society and culture, Shahn explains, “You make so many assumptions about things that you look at, whether it is people, animals, trees, or anything. You make assumptions, but the more arcane something is to you, the more likely you are to look at it, rather than to know it.” Shahn continues, “With the human head there is the opposite extreme. You have got so many preconceived ideas about it. However, you are constantly substituting what you think you know for what you see or obliterating what you see with what you think you know.”

Born in Columbus, Ohio, Shahn was surrounded by art. His father, Ben Shahn, was a distinguished American painter and his mother, Bernarda Bryson Shahn, had an artistic career that spanned eight decades and included paintings, illustrations, lithographs and books. He received his bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania in 1957 and a master’s in fine arts from Boston Museum School in 1961. He has taught sculpture and drawing at Tyler School of Art in Rome, Italy, Boston University, the Maryland Institute and Art Students League of New York, among others. He has exhibited extensively in the United States and abroad. His work is in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., Princeton University Art Museum, and the Vatican Museum, Rome, Italy. Shahn currently lives and works in Roosevelt, N.J and now teaches at the Art Students League in New York.

The Noyes Museum of Art was founded in 1983 to collect, preserve and exhibit American fine art, crafts and folk art with an emphasis on New Jersey artists and folk art forms, reflecting the area's long traditions, history, landscape and culture. General funding for The Noyes Museum of Art is provided by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a state partner of the National Endowment for the Arts; the Mr. and Mrs. Fred Winslow Noyes Foundation; the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation; the Odessa F. and Henry D. Kahrs Charitable Trust and the Shop Rite LPGA Classic. The Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Sunday, noon to 5:00 p.m. and closed on Mondays and major holidays. The Noyes Museum of Art is located one and a half miles south of Historic Smithville Village, off Route 9, on Lily Lake Road in Oceanville, New Jersey. Admission fees are $4 for adults and $3 for seniors and students. For more information, please call (609) 652-8848 or visit : www.noyesmuseum.org

This event was selected by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts as part of the American Masterpieces Series in New Jersey. American Masterpieces is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts. Please visit www.njartscouncil.org or www.arts.gov for more information on the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

---

Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~