Staff

Norman Shaw PhD MFA MPhil MA(hons)

Lecturer

Tel: + 44 (0) 1382 385371
Email: n.shaw@dundee.ac.uk
Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design
Room 5038
13 Perth Road
University of Dundee
Dundee, DD1 4HT

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Biography

Born in 1970, grew up in the Highlands of Scotland.

PhD in Fine Art, University of Dundee (2004)

MFA in Painting, Edinburgh College of Art (1996).

MPhil in Art History, Edinburgh College of Art (1994)

MA (hons) in Fine Art, University of Edinburgh (1993)

Taught Art History and Fine Art at Edinburgh College of Art and the University of Edinburgh 1995-2004. Lecturer in Fine Art at the University of Dundee 1999-present.

Exhibits widely in group and solo exhibitions, both nationally and internationally. Outputs include drawing and painting, printmaking, writing, sound, DJing, music production, video, installation, performance, curation.

Has also published extensively in books and journals. Records, performs and DJs music internationally.

Exhibitions include: ‘Resident 11’ (Royal Scottish Academy, 2011), ‘Window to the West’ (City Art Centre, 2010), ‘Prints of Darkness’ (Co-curated, Edinburgh Printmakers, 2010 (touring)),  ‘Heavy Metal Mouth (Torpichen St Gallery, Edinburgh, 2009), ‘Highland’ (Royal Scottish Academy, 2007), ‘No More Stars (Edinburgh College of Art, 2007), ‘Infernal Methods’ (solo – Generator Projects, Dundee, 2006), ‘The Great Book of Gaelic’ (An Lanntair, Stornoway, 2002 (touring)), ‘Calanais’ (An Lanntair, 1996 (touring)).

Statement

The limits of perception; fractal geomancy; mystical anarchy; hauntology; speculative materialism; geoshamanism; rhizomatic cartography; sonorous topography; pataphysical science; the inhuman; liminalism; transcendental psychographies; crepuscular metarchaeology; dark green ecology; apocalyptic iconographies; strangeness; the numinous; the uncanny, the post-sublime; the impingement of the cosmic, lawless, and mystical upon the prosaic sphere of the known; disillusionism; dissolutionism; delusions; deliriums; non-phenomena; transsensory frequencies; subharmonics; sonic heresies; nocturnal thickets; wilderness, mountain ecstasy; dim forests; gothic melancholy; ontological despair; demontology; cosmic horror; transmortal consciousness; metaGaelic otherworlds; Celtic twilights; northern post-romanticism, hyperborealism; sacred geometry; secret geology; nomadic amnesia; dusk jockeying; the unpresentable, are some of my preoccupations.

Recent Research Projects

Cheer Up! It’s not the end of the world…

Exhibition and publication, co-curated with Sarah-Manning Shaw, Edinburgh Printmakers, August – September 2012.

Presenting the work of selected international artists who have in some sense explored ideas about the end of the world, apocalypse, finality, the death of thought, or related eschatological concerns.
Includes prints and other media by Jake and Dinos Chapman, Gordon Cheung, Damien Hirst,  Andy Warhol, Ricky Allman, Martin Barrett, Etienne Clement, David Faithfull, Konstantin Kalinovich, Kris Kuksi, Lori Nix
Hard backed limited edition catalogue published by Edinburgh Printmakers with commissioned essays by Norman Shaw and Kevin Whitesides. ISBN 978-0-9541530-4-5.

Prints of Darkness

New commissions, exhibition, publication and tour. Funded by Scottish Arts Council and the Carnegie Trust, co-curated with Sarah-Manning Cordwell (Edinburgh Printmakers) and Edward Summerton (University of Dundee) for Edinburgh Printmakers.

Edinburgh Printmakers, 17 July – 04 September 2010; Matthew Gallery
University of Dundee, 13 November - 11 December 2010; The Changing Room, Stirling, 12 May - 25 June 2011; Engramme, Quebec, Canada, 28 October – 11 December 2011; Rhyl Library Arts Centre, North Wales, 21 January - 25 February 2012; Pallant House Gallery; West Sussex, England, 21 August - 21 October 2012.

An investigation of the impact of record cover art on visual artists. Twelve artists were commissioned to produce one print in record-cover format as a response to the research theme. Artists: Andrew Cranston, Tommy Crooks, Malcy Duff, Duncan Marquiss, Lee O'Connor, Chris Orr, Norman Shaw, Edward Summerton, The Lonely Piper, Andy Wake, Mark Wallace, with Vicky Bennett, AKA People Like Us. Project included a related events programme including Instruments of Darkness - a night of iconoclastic music and performance programmed by the curators and featuring artists and their associates from the exhibition.

Included commissioned t-shirts and badges from each artist, a limited edition 12" picture vinyl record, housed in a boxed-set with fold-out poster and commissioned texts and artwork by Norman Shaw and text by Vicki Bennett. ISBN 978-0-9541530-2-1.

Nemeton

Artist Book (338 pages), published by Nemeton, 2010. An exploration of relationships between place, consciousness, and epistemologies, through a collaborative tour of selected sites around the Highlands of Scotland, resulting in interrogation of marginal and esoteric aspects of the contemporary Highland landscape. Essays and images by Norman Shaw, plus commissioned texts by Murdo Macdonald, The Lonely Piper, and Tommy Crooks, and images by Edward Summerton, Murdo Macdonald, Lee O’Connor and Tommy Crooks.

Produced for ‘Window to the West’ five-year research project, funded by AHRC and led by Prof Murdo Macdonald. ISBN 978-0-9568242-0-2

The book complemented the ‘Nemeton’ exhibition curated by Norman Shaw as part of the Window to the West exhibition ‘The Rediscovery of Highland Art’, curated by Arthur Watson and Murdo Macdonald (Nov 2010 to March 2011, City Art Centre, Edinburgh). The ‘Nemeton’ exhibition contained works by all of the artists involved in the ‘Nemeton’ project, including a video installation and drawings by Norman Shaw.

A Skye Hauntography

Exhibition of drawings exploring visual aspects of the hauntological landscapes of the Isle Skye.

An investigation of cleared village hauntings, and of relationships between folk etymologies of the Isle of Skye and the mythic landscapes of Ossian and HP Lovecraft.

Part of the ‘Resident 11’ exhibition (Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, October 2011). This work was produced on a Royal Scottish Academy Artists Research Residency at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig Gaelic College on the Isle of Skye, funded by Scottish Arts Council, May - December 2010.

Website

www.normanshaw.co.uk