WOOD METAL PLASTIC SHELF, 2020

Wood, metal and plastic have been the holy trinity of the material landscape, the archetypal textures of ‘good taste’ and modernism. In these works James Shaw references the mid twentieth century period of design and modernism where the current malaise of our usage of material was set. Polished metal and the smooth beauty of walnut timber are combined with the grotesque gloopyness of melted plastic. Particularly apt is that the plastic used is actually reclaimed from granulated ‘kodak yellow’ film canisters discovered in an old north London factory, alluding to Kodachrome, the excitement of a world in colour as expressed in the Paul Simon song.