April 17 – July 3, 2021
Art League Gallery
Reception: Friday, May 7 | 5:00 – 8:00 p.m. EST
Please join us for a free, public reception for LIKE AND SHARE IF YOU AGREE!!! Shelby will be in attendance virtually and will interact with visitors via Zoom in the gallery while performing a live online drawing demonstration from his studio in Laramie, WY. Come watch him work and ask questions about his process, subject matter, or anything you like!
Shelby Shadwell uses the visual language of internet memes to create large-scale charcoal drawings that comment on various personal and societal anxieties, high and low status, as well as the way we communicate and connect with others through images on social media. Upending the usual nature of memes, Shelby’s drawings hint at intended meanings, but their punchlines remain ambiguous. Additional drawings of gut piles left behind by game hunters poetically question the ephemeral nature of so many of our experiences on the Web. In combination, these bodies of work draw attention to our neverending consumption of content on the internet in a quest to make meaning.
Shelby Shadwell is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Wyoming. Born (1981) and raised in Springfield, Missouri, Shelby spent most of his years in the Midwest. In 2003 he received his BFA from Washington University School of Fine Art in St. Louis, where he studied printmaking and drawing as a Kenneth E. Hudson Scholar. He accepted a fellowship to attend Southern Illinois University Carbondale and went on to graduate with an MFA studying printmaking and drawing in 2006.
A two-time recipient of the Visual Arts Fellowship from the Wyoming Arts Council, Shelby exhibits across the nation. He received the First Place Award in the International Drawing Annual 9 from the Manifest Creative Research Gallery and Drawing Center in Cincinnatti, OH, where he also had a solo exhibition in February 2013. He is included in a total of five INDA publications and was awarded a solo exhibition in the APEX Space at the Portland Art Museum, OR, in 2016. His work is included in their permanent collection.
You can learn more about Shelby and his work at shelbyshadwell.com.
Images: (above) Shelby Shadwell, COMEDIE 7, 2018, charcoal and pastel on prepared polyester, 43 x 43 inches; (below) Shelby Shadwell, COMEDIE 5, 2017, charcoal and pastel on prepared polyester, 43 x 43 inches
