Esau McGhee & Michael Shaw

In the works of both McGhee and Shaw, photo-based processes are employed to tear down and to reconstruct. For Shaw, his labor-intensive cyanotype process evokes architectural blueprints, subverted here to depict structures already built – in this case affordable housing projects in Santa Monica, Los Angeles County’s highest rent area. In McGhee's collaged constructions, snapped patterns and textures from urban environments reflect abstract, painterly qualities in conjunction with the stark, high-contrast grittiness associated with street photography. Focusing their vision on the fractured environment of where people live, work, and struggle, both artists highlight the dominance of property, both public and private, in how we situate ourselves in society.

Esau McGhee’s interdisciplinary artistic practice is a critique of image construction found in landscape. Utilizing photography, found objects, collage and sculpture the works physically embody conventional strategies of representation, class and race construction. McGhee received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and his MFA from Northwestern University. He currently works and lives in the United States.

Michael Shaw is a Los Angeles-based artist and creator and host of The Conversation Art Podcast. He has exhibited his work nationally, most recently at Charlie James Gallery in 2017. Shaw received his BFA from UCLA and his MFA from Hunter College in New York.