Colleen Shaw

Hello, my paintings are about our relationship to nature, plants and animals. I start with a blank canvas and no plan. The images come through many changes. I use a combination of acrylic paint and oil bar on canvas and I stretch my own canvases.

For me images of animals often appear and I think they relate to archetypal imagery and our collective conscious.

I believe Picasso was right when he wanted to achieve that child like spontaneity and I just love colour, I paint as much for the pleasure of seeing colours as to express my feelings for the natural world.

The painter and gallery owner John Lyons wrote about my work:
"Colleen..., remains intuitive in composition and colour. She expresses in her work an affinity to animals in a way that invites the invention of mythological stories with hints of the archetypes.
Her paintings are visual fantasies with an innocent sense of awe."

I paint in a shed in my garden.

Thanks to the people who are buying and favouriting my work. I really appreciate it.

BA Art & Design Bradford Art College 1983.
Awarded The Licentiateship of Designer Craftsmen for printmaking 1983.
PGCE Art and Design Leeds University 2003

A broader range of my work can be seen on my website at www.colleenshaw.co.uk
Co-owner of the Tin Tiger Gallery, 71 Charles Street, Louth, 2009 -2011.
Exhibitions:
‘I’m over the moon now.’ solo exhibition, Riverhead Theatre, Louth August 2009.
‘Fools and Angels” mixed show, SAP (Sculpture Art Plants) Helmswell, May 2009.
‘Moondrawn’, joint exhibition The Sam Scorer Gallery, August 2008.
Assembly Rooms Ludlow, NAPA group show, August 2007.
Mariners Gallery, St. Ives. NAPA group show, November 2002/04 and 2005.
Obsidian Art Gallery, Buckinghamshire. Group exhibition 2003.
As Far As The Eye Can See, joint exhibition
The Hourglass Studio Gallery, Hebden, Bridge, 2002.
The Williamson Art Gallery, Birkenhead, NAPA group show, 2004.
Group exhibitions at Red Brick Mill, Batley. 2000-2001.
Open exhibitions at Batley Art Gallery and Mirfield art Gallery.
The Elizabethan Gallery, Wakefield, Women Celebrate, 1997.