HERE TAKE MY STEADY HAND
24” x 36”
Oil, antique embroidery, and etchings on cradled wood in a maple floater frame
This painting reflects on Ben Shahn’s time at Black Mountain College in 1951, drawing on the broader debates of that moment around figuration, abstraction, and artistic responsibility.
An imagined exchange between Shahn and Robert Motherwell becomes a focal point for considering Shahn’s defense of socially engaged art amid the rise of Abstract Expressionism. In tracing that lineage forward, the work reflects on how Shahn’s commitment to empathy and moral urgency continues to feel vital in the present.
The images on the right hand side of the painting are drypoint etchings of sketches from Ben Shahn’s paintings and ideas that I was thinking about when making this work.
HERE TAKE MY STEADY HAND
24” x 36”
Oil, antique embroidery, and etchings on cradled wood in a maple floater frame
This painting reflects on Ben Shahn’s time at Black Mountain College in 1951, drawing on the broader debates of that moment around figuration, abstraction, and artistic responsibility.
An imagined exchange between Shahn and Robert Motherwell becomes a focal point for considering Shahn’s defense of socially engaged art amid the rise of Abstract Expressionism. In tracing that lineage forward, the work reflects on how Shahn’s commitment to empathy and moral urgency continues to feel vital in the present.
The images on the right hand side of the painting are drypoint etchings of sketches from Ben Shahn’s paintings and ideas that I was thinking about when making this work.