SAATCHI GALLERY
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SELECTED WORKS BY Conrad Shawcross



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Conrad Shawcross

Light Perpeptual I

2004
mixed media

225 x 300 x 250

Housed in a giant cage like a wild, unpredictable experiment, The End of the Particular (Perpetual Light I) has an inherent sense of danger; the laboratory result of Conrad Shawcross’s anorak enthusiasm for science.
Comprised of an articulated arm, with a single light bulb at the end it rotates at a speed of 200rpm, creating a ‘magical’ hovering shape. It’s Conrad Shawcross’s larger than life diagram of String Theory, the floating illusion descriptive of the concept that matter is actually made up of continuous loops of energy, not individual particles.
The blinding light line fluctuates at the precise degrees of a harmonic octave, like the graphic ‘waves’ seen on the visual output monitor of a stereo.
Displayed in a darkened gallery, the device works as a giant drawing machine, blasting it’s luminous patterns through the wire grid onto the walls, leaving the viewer seeing spots, like from staring into the sun. Conrad Shawcross isn’t making paintings on canvas, but rather through mechanical invention, he’s imprinting his image directly into the eye.


Conrad Shawcross

The Nervous System

2003
mixed media including oak, motor & cord

Dimensions variable

Take an impossible machine design by Rube Goldberg, a contraption built by Heath Robinson, and cross it with a junk sculpture by Jean Tinguely, and you might get something a bit like Conrad Shawcross’s The Nervous System. Ridiculously mammoth, and perilously rickety, Shawcross’s monstrous structure is a testament to Luddite technology.
Handcrafted from oak timber, pieced together like a giant Meccano™ set, The Nervous System is a serious feat of amateur engineering. Mesmerising in its simplistic complexity, Shawcross’s sculpture offers a certain mysticism through making: beyond experiencing this sculpture as an object (with all its creaking noise and grinding movement), it is also a working spinning machine.
His improbable system of cogs and pulleys constantly churn out a perfectly woven rope. Beyond being an installation in itself, The Nervous System is also an artwork that makes art: the colourful cord pours out of the machine like paint, piling on the floor like an ever-expanding abstract sculpture.


Conrad Shawcross

Harmonic Spectrum 3:2

2005
Pencil on paper

329.3 x 122 cm


Conrad Shawcross

Harmonic Spectrum 4:3

2005
Pencil on paper

329.3 x 122 cm


Conrad Shawcross

Harmonic Spectrum 5:3

2005
Pencil on paper

329.3 x 122 cm


Conrad Shawcross

Harmonic Spectrum 5:4

2005
Pencil on paper

329.3 x 122 cm


Conrad Shawcross

Harmonic Spectrum 9:8

2005
Pencil on paper

329.3 x 122 cm



ARTIST INFORMATION




Conrad Shawcross's BIOGRAPHY



1977
Born in London, England


SOLO EXHIBITIONS


2005
The Steady States, The New Art Gallery, Walsall and The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

2004-2005
Continuum, The Queen’s House, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

2004
Manifesta 5, San Sebastian, Spain
Galerie Bernd Kluser, Munich,

2003
The Nervous Systems, Entwistle, London


GROUP EXHIBITIONS


2005
S.N.O.W Sculpture in Non-Objective Way, Galleria Tucci Russo, Torre Pellice, Turin

2004
New Blood, The Saatchi Gallery, London
After Life, Death, Remembrance. Redundancy. Reanimation, Bowes Museum, County
Durham, curated by Simon Morrissey

2003
Dead Game, Museum 52, London

2002
Fame and Promise, 14 Wharf Road, London
It was bigger than all of us, Prenelle Gallery, Canary Wharf

2001
Engine II (Communicating at an Unknown Rate), The Old Armory, Harrow Road, London
New Contemporaries 2001, Camden Arts Centre, London; Northern Centre for
Contemporary Art, Sunderland

2000
Engine I, Dollard Street Studios, Vauxhall, London

 
 

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