M HKA Ensembles

Drawing, 177.8 × 88.9 × 7.6 cm.

Collection: Gagosian, Los Angeles (Inv. no. JSHAW 2010.0027).

As a series within the 'Dream Objects' series, the 'Irregularly Shaped Canvases' refer, on the one hand, to the tradition of painting on irregularly shaped canvases by artists such as Frank Stella, Kenneth Noland, Ellsworth Kelly or Barnett Newman. On the other hand, they refer to an object on the cover of the album Presence by British rock group Led Zeppelin. This work is based on an etching by William Blake of the Laocoön Group, one of the most celebrated ancient Greek sculptures. Shaw is fascinated by the work of British poet, painter and printmaker Blake (1757-1827), who is considered a major artist of English romanticism. William Blake's work explores major themes such as spirituality, imagination and the nature of existence. Although in Sophocles, Laocoön appears as the priest of Apollo who warns the Trojans about the Trojan Horse, Blake reinterprets the group of statues as Jehovah with his two sons Adam and Satan. Shaw in turn appropriates the work with an interpretation in the style of Wayne Boring, Superman's main cartoonist in the 1950s – the period in which Shaw began reading comics.

“The series came from a dream where a former dealer came into my studio to give orders about pieces I was working on.”