JUDITH SHAW

Upended

April 4-June 21, 2025

Bruno David is pleased to present Upended, a sculpture installation by multi-disciplinary artist Judith Shaw. The exhibition will be on view from April 4 through June 21, 2025, at the gallery’s WINDOW ON FORSYTH location, accessible 24/7 at 7513 Forsyth Blvd., Saint Louis (Downtown Clayton), MO. This is Shaw’s second solo exhibition with Bruno David Gallery.

Upended’ is part of a sculptural series that turns roadside tire debris into emotionally charged pieces about disintegration and integration. The work is informed by the expressive potential inherent in the raw material. “Explosive, gutted tire casings evoke the impulsive pace of our world and the outer and inner turbulence that erupts as a consequence, Shaw says. The debris forms a conversation about fragmentation, alienation, and dislocation. When gathering rubber along the highways, with cars and trucks speeding past me, the air and ground vibrating, I experience viscerally the fraying of personal and interpersonal connection. The chaos lingers in the character of the sculptural forms. At the same time, the womb-like shape speaks to human-to-human connection and intimacy.”

Shaw fabricates abstract, organic forms rich with psychological, emotional, and social references, using ordinary everyday objects and found materials.  Her pieces give form to feelings, exposing, exploring, and confronting human turbulence, identity, and selfhood. Her visual vocabulary sparks a visceral dialogue that challenges perception and invites reflection. “The discipline of my sculptural practice is where something undisciplined is unleashed. I abandon the need for order and control that drives every other aspect of my life. My artistic process fosters freedom and spontaneity,” Shaw notes.

Judith Shaw’s works has been exhibited nationally in art galleries, on college campuses, and at medical schools, including Rhode Island School of Design, Harvard University, Columbia University Medical Center, New York Medical College, and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Shaw has been invited to lecture about her work at MIT, Harvard, Columbia, and Stamford Universities. Her art has garnered significant national and local print, broadcast, and electronic media attention, including coverage in The New York Times.