These fine art prints from Jon Shaw‘s City Series show some interesting and colourful scenes from the artist’s home of Vancouver, Canada.
What Up
The original paintings are mixed-media works; they include ink marker drawings and acrylic paints on wood panels. The acrylics are applied almost like watercolours in some places, as loose transparent washes. There are also many bold splatters and splashes of paint, which don’t always fall within the drawn lines, and this gives the paintings an expressionist quality that I really like. You can also still see the colour and grain of the wood panels throughout the paintings.
Several of the scenes are in Vancouver’s Chinatown and Japantown, areas where the artist has had his studios. Main and Pender shows a lamp post from this part of the city: “In Chinatown, the street posts are amazing. They have metal dragons built into them, and the lights themselves are encased in lantern structures. Not only that, but the graffiti comes in different languages, and the major colours are red and purple,” Shaw says.
Lonely Only includes the sign of The Only Seafoods, a closed cafe. Pseudoreplication shows several recycling bins covered in graffiti and grime. Other paintings show shipping yards and back alleys.
“My work focuses on the concept of urban exploration. I essentially find myself in particular locales, and explore the environments with my camera. I immerse myself there for a bit of time, and enjoy all the little nuances and components. I really enjoy the act of becoming one with my immediate surroundings, and appreciating what is there,” Shaw says.
You can purchase art prints of these paintings from Shaw’s Etsy shop.
Assemblage
Resin Worm
Pseudoreplication
No Love
Main and Pender
Lonely Only
Empress
