The Art Perspective provides a visual and audio forum for artists to exhibit their art and present exciting responses to major themes of our day. This edition on Girls, Women & Sports highlights the work of Karen Shaw, a New York-based artist exploring her feminist reactions to what she sees as the male-dominated world of sports. Click on “Play” to view the art and hear audio descriptions by Karen Shaw about her work. I welcome feedback from online viewers: email to [email protected]
Karen Shaw uses images and materials from pop-culture to address the sexism prevalent in the sports arena. Working in two and three dimensions, she invokes her “power” as an artist to feminize the macho wardrobe of the male athlete. The finished product is a mixture of masculine and feminine fashion that transcends typical gender boundaries.
Through her work, Shaw uses humor and passion to express her desire to see more girls and women represented in sports, and given the respect and celebration they deserve.
Shaw has been showing her work professionally for more than 35 years, including solo and group exhibitions in Paris, Germany, Switzerland and Guatemala, as well as across the United States. In New York, she has shown with Pavel Zoubok Gallery and Fredrieke Taylor Gallery.
Shaw has been awarded an NEA artist fellowship and an individual artist’s grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts and received residency grants in the south of France at the Karolyi Foundation. Her work is included in several museum collections including the Herbert Johnson Museum at Cornell University in Ithaca NY and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, as well as the Vera List Gallery of the New School and the Portland Museum of Art in Portland Oregon.
She has taught drawing and painting at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and has twice been a visiting artist at Princeton University in New Jersey. For the past 37 years, she has been the senior curator at the Islip Art Museum and Carriage House, East Islip, NY.