Macaulay and Co. Fine Art is pleased to present Strobe Count; an exhibition of photo-based works by Jeremy Shaw that further his investigation into areas of altered states and belief. In the main gallery hangs Towards Universal Pattern Recognition (2016-21), a series of archival documentary photographs that feature subjects experiencing presumed states of spiritual, somatic, hedonistic or technological ecstasy. The photographs are framed under precisely faceted picture lenses, designed by Shaw to create multiple refracted images of a specific element within the picture. This mediation of the presented image not only appears to approximate the altered state of consciousness of the photographic subject(s), it heightens an awareness of the perspectives of the camera, the beliefs or values of the original photographer and the viewer of the artwork; they are brought into relation around the very notion of capture, witnessing, authenticity and representability.
The documentary subjects depicted in the Cathartic Illustration (2021) silk screen prints also appear to be experiencing an excessive altered state. Here, the source photographs have been refracted in-camera through various effect lenses in the process of reshooting, skewing the subjects poses and proportions to illustrate a subjective experience upon which one can only speculate. The mediation of historical images by analog means (no digital manipulation) in the tactile medium of silkscreen further obscures their date of production in a manner akin to Shaw’s filmic works. Although created in a medium that is effective for wide distribution and imagery derived from the series covers a full gallery wall, each Cathartic Illustration is unique.