Shane Walsh Recent Paintings

Shane Walsh: Shadow Arcade
Asya Geisberg Gallery
45 White Street, New York

By EDWARD WAISNIS December 27, 2024

With influences running the gamut from mid-to-late classic modernism (Picasso through Stella to Murray, with a particular debt to Lichtenstein for his deconstruction of the brush stroke laid bare and made physical) Hip Hop album covers,with sensitivity for their color combinations, to the second wave of graffiti, Shane Walsh has confabulated a practice that aggregated these streams in an expiration of exuberance [a term oft-used by Walsh himself]. Regarding that Lichtenstein reference, Walsh embodies it through a process that involves photocopying to exploit the sooty charcoal tones that the mechanical intervention imparts then mimicking the results on top of masked off rafts of putty white with the result being missives from where low-tech encroachment morphs into age-old mastery, testament to the elasticity of the medium. Then there is the nod to Polke in the stria evocative of the interlaced lines found in video, overlays of dot patterns (Jacqueline Humphries also uses these in a similar fashion, but with vastly different intent) as well as the dashes of jotted stars that come across as having errantly escaped from some emblem, or flag. While the rainbow-like ray embellishments that hover around the edges, pointing to horizons beyond the picture plain, may be looked at as harbingers of comfort akin to that proposed by a baby on board inflected rainbow sticker on the rear windshield of an automobile; a quaint sign that carries a message that outweighs itself.

Exhibition installation view Shane Walsh: Shadow Arcade Courtesy of the artist and Asya Geisberg Gallery. Photo: Etienne Frossard

After the dedication of working strictly in black and white for several years–a tried and true move relied on by a host of precursors (de Kooning, Rauchenberg, Held and, of course, Kline who parlayed it into a signature style and career)–Walsh subsequently dove full-heartedly into the full tilt froth presented in roughly half of the paintings on display. A mad constructivism offering references fed by motifs that become signature elements Walsh’s broad absorption at times presents hinderance to his focus.

Shane Walsh, Criminal's Apprentice, 2023, acrylic and oil on canvas, 80 x 72 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Asya Geisberg Gallery. Photo: Etienne Frossard

Paramount in Walsh’s work is the hue and cry of pattern. His fields buzz much like a busy city intersection, keeping the eye vibrating between structure, form and flashes of color. In earlier work Walsh even toyed with tromp l’oeil dimensionality, using illusionistic drop shadows that tipped the work towardsAbstract Illusionism. To avoid the gimmicky-cum-illustrative pitfall this presented, he concentrated toward stencils and masking to pull off separation from the ground by way of edge boundaries.

Albert Oehlen’s pioneering use of the digital is apropos due to Walsh’s own considerations of said technologies, though not as explicitly. But, above all this tendency is more appropriately simpatico with another early adopter who also happens to be unmoored from coastal-centric centers of abstract experimentation, namely Texan Jeff Elrod (Walsh hails from Milwaukee). However, Walsh looks at this incursion of this ethereal cloud with a jaundiced eye. His devotion to the hand maintaining prominence challenges the hegemony, but hedges away from denying forces beyond his control borne by the relentlessness of time and human-driven capabilities of development.

Shane Walsh, Nicotine Canary, 2024, oil and acrylic on canvas, 56 x 40 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Asya Geisberg Gallery. Photo: Etienne Frossard

Shane Walsh, Weather On Its Way, 2024, oil and acrylic on canvas, 47 x 37 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Asya Geisberg Gallery. Photo: Etienne Frossard

The half dozen most recent works concern themselves with a parring down in tone and resolve. An exception being Nicotine Canary, with its angular dot besotted strips resembling bulb-illuminated edging borders found on both dressing room mirrors as well as roadside Las Vegas-Inspired signage, dancing over blocks of neon color, traversed by elongated drips and a cartoon dust-up of a cloud provided by Carol Dunham and/or Krazy Kat and, by dint of the association, that ever looming giant of post-modernism, Guston. The other five, from 2024–Weather On Its Way; Corsair; Soft Skeleton; Orlando Menthol and Flashed Fangs–offer a simplification harking back to the black and white period. Particularly engaging are the near mirror twinning between Weather On Its Way and Flashed Fangs with their coalescing heaps of forms standing out against brushy cerulean/teal backgrounds. Putting aside the carnivalesque brings up an inexplicable reminiscence of Motherwell’s approach, methods and results. Something I feel confident was not on Walsh’s mind, or his intent, but is, nevertheless, palpable that may, in part, be attributable to a selfish wish-fulfillment, on my part, to see this presently overlooked painter’s influence revived.

Shane Walsh, Kissing Booth, 2023, acrylic and oil on canvas, 47 x 37 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Asya Geisberg Gallery. Photo: Etienne Frossard

Walsh’s proclaimed ardor for Picasso’s Night Fishing in Antibes * is made corporeal not so much in his adoption of the contrasts of cool aquatic shades that access the nocturnal, but more pointedly in Walsh’s evocation of ‘night’ by building upon a black ground. Kissing Booth, 2023, offers a buoyant example of these attributes put to service.

Shane Walsh, Chlorine Saint, 2023, acrylic and oil on canvas, 54 x 42 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Aysa Geisberg Gallery. Photo; Etienne Frossard

Walsh’s recent turn to aerosol has contributed to convincingly allow in the arcade, boardwalk and/or strip. Reminiscent of Marco Pariani’s usage, the commonality is distinquished by process and construction in the case of Pariani versus stylus deployment from Walsh. Furthermore, Walsh’s descent to the street is primarily concerned with the pedestrian, the quotidian, rather than assessment of consumerism that is rampant amongst the legion of today’s practitioners deploying flourishes from the spray can.

As he is now finds himself seated in mid-career terrain Walsh’s challenge provides paths provided by his hard-won accomplishments. From the pull of advancing technology–now happening at a dizzying pace and perched to explode in coming years–against the sensuality and tactility of painting’s history as resistance.

Shane Walsh, Corsair, 2024, acrylic and oil on canvas, 47 x 37 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Asya Geisberg Gallery. Photo: Etienne Frossard

Exhibition dates: November 1–December 21, 2024

* Artist Talk-Shane Walsh, Peninsula School of Art, YouTube video.