Known for his unrestricted fluency across media, Shields created unique, avantgarde, and imaginative structures that blur the hierarchy of materials using extravagant, unconventional methods. The exhibition includes wall- mounted constructions on and of paper or fabric, layered with lush, bright colors and loose geometric patterns. Animated by sensuous lines and energetic shapes, these works pulsate with innovation and discovery, if not joy.
Rather than executing though conventional methods, throughout his life and practice, Shields embraced playful experimentation in papermaking, and in cumulative techniques such as layering pulpy paper compositions over sculpted, stitched, cut, painted, beaded, and/or printed elements that both celebrate and transcend their material forms. These objects create an energy that permeates the room like whimsical living entities inviting us to contemplate their existence while simultaneously asking us to [metaphorically] dance to their self-created visual vibrations and animated dynamism.
Born in Herington, KS, in 1944, Alan Shields attended Kansas State University (1963 to 1966) where he studied civil engineering and studio art. He moved to New York City in 1968, where he exhibited with Paula Cooper Gallery for over twenty years. In 1972, the artist permanently moved to his home in Shelter Island, NY. One year later, in 1973, Shields was a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Alan Shields’ artwork is represented in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; Tate Collection, London, UK; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; among countless other prestigious public and private collections. Important museum exhibitions include “Alan Shields: Common Threads,” Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY (2018); “Alan Shields: Protracted Simplicity (1966-1985),” Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO (2016); “Into the Maze,” SITE Santa Fe, NM (2014); “Alan Shields: A Survey,” The Beach Museum of Art, Manhattan, KS (1999); “1968 – 1983: The Work of Alan Shields,” Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, TN (1983), which traveled to Lowe Art Museum, Coral Gables, FL, and Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO; “Alan Shields: Paintings and Prints,” Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA (1981).