Phil Shaw
Phil Shaw is an acclaimed British artist who creates hyperreal images of bookshelves. While visually stunning Shaw’s work is always rooted in a conceptual context. Each image plays with an idea: an idea that challenges our expectations and interrogates the changing place of the printed world in our digital age.
Book-titles (all genuine) ranged on a shelf might spell out a fairy story when read in sequence, or reveal the names of the stations on a line of the London Underground, or conceal the words of a Shakespeare soliloquy. Or some subtle slippage may have occurred, the familiar book titles altered to reveal new meanings or suggest new possibilities.
Shaw’s work is clever, beautiful, sometimes unsettling, and often very funny. These are pictures to explore and re-explore. Each encounter yields fresh discoveries.
During the Covid pandemic of 2020, his print – Shelf Isolation – became both a viral and real-world sensation.
At a technical level, Shaw’s work is something exceptional: neither a painting nor a photograph but a contemporary re-fashioning, and combining, of the two media. His pictures are digitally-constructed images, painstakingly drawn by hand, and then printed using the densest water-based inks on very fine-grain Hahnemühle paper to achieve an extraordinary intensity of colour.
Phil Shaw was born in Huddersfield in 1950. Having studied at the Royal College of Art, London, he taught printmaking for many years at Middlesex University, London.
He has exhibited extensively since the 1970s. His work is often shown at the Royal Academy, London, and is held in numerous important collections, including the British Government Art Collection and Paul Allen’s Vulcan Foundation, Seattle, USA. His 2004 print, Fiction 3, was chosen as the ‘Print of the Year’ by the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers.’ In 2013, he was commissioned by the then British Prime Minister, David Cameron, to create a commemorative print for the world leaders gathered at the G8 Summit in the UK.
- The Lost Goreys , 2025
- Londonensi Subterraneis: Districtus Linea, 2024
- Londonensi Subterraneis: Circulus Linea, 2024
- Londonensi Subterraneis: Aquilonius Linea, 2024
- Londonensi Subterraneis: Bakerloo Linea, 2024
- Londonensi Subterraneis: Centralis Linea, 2024
- Londonensi Subterraneis: Metropolitanus Linea, 2024
- Londonensi Subterraneis: Iubilae Linea, 2024
- Londonensi Subterraneis: Hammersmith et Civitatem, 2024
- Londonensi Subterraneis: Piccadilly Linea, 2024
- The Big Question (Frequently Asked Questions 3), 2024
- The Truth in Black and White with Some Grey Areas 7, 2023
- Frequently Asked Questions II, 2023
- The Aquatic Life II, 2023
- Once Upon a Time, 2017
- Big Fiction, 2014
- Install shot
- The Truth in Black and White with Some Grey Areas 3, 2016
- All That Glisters, 2017
- You Can't Judge a Book, 2022
- The Life Aquatic, 2017
- Love at First Sight, 2019
- Once Upon a Time (detail), 2017
- Science Fiction, 2018
- London, New York, Paris, Moscow II, 2019
- Installation Shot
- Londonensi Subterraneis: Elizabeth Linea, 2022
- Londonensi Subterraneis, 2012
- Londonensi Subterraneis: Victoria Linea, 2024
- Climate Change, 2022
- Fractured Fairytales, 2023
- The Divine Comedy, 2022
behold your heart: Dante Biennial
Inspired by Dante Alighieri9 March - 28 April 2024LondonFollowing our exhibition Inferno in 2022, the first of the gallery's biennial exhibitions inspired by the life and writings of Dante, the Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery is proud to present behold your heart, the second of such Dante-inspired exhibitions.Read moreOnce Upon a Time
Phil Shaw1 - 25 January 2020LondonInside an exhibition of works by artist Phil Shaw, to coincide with his Once Upon a Time box-set, at the Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery in London.Read moreThe Reader
Phil Shaw8 - 27 January 2018LondonInside an exhibition of bookshelf prints from ground-breaking British digital-printmaker Phil Shaw's Shelf Obsession collection at the Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery in London in 2018.Read moreShelf Obsession
Phil Shaw26 September - 28 October 2017LondonDr Phil Shaw is a ground-breaking British digital-printmaker, who creates hyper-real images of great formal elegance and conceptual richness. His distinctive bookshelf prints interrogate the changing place of the printed word in a digital age, and the transfer of meaning through inter-textuality. This September, the gallery will be launching Shelf...Read moreStorytelling
Ross Bonfanti and Phil Shaw, NYC15 December 2013 - 12 January 2014Rebecca Hossack Gallery is proud to present 'Storytelling,' an exhibition featuring works by Ross Bonfanti and Phil Shaw. In place of a formal opening, Rebecca Hossack Gallery is partnering up with arts and culture quarterly Works and Days for an event on Sunday, December 15 from 4-7PM. The event will...Read more
Phil Shaw's Work: Humour as a Serious Matter
Middlesex University, 1 May 2010A Diplomatic Incident
Daily Mail, 23 June 2013A Good Read
In New York, 1 December 2013Battle of the Sexes
Works and Days Quarterly, 10 December 2013An Eye for the Surreal
Yorkshire Post, 30 May 2014Phil Shaw, Multi-talented Artist and Musician
Huddersfield Examiner, 27 June 2014Best in Show: Phil Shaw
Hedge Magazine, 26 August 2014Phil Shaw
The Lady, 7 October 2014How to Grab a Bargain
The Times, 24 October 2014Art at the Crossroad
South China Morning Post, 14 March 2015Art & Antiques
Notting Hill Holland Park, 1 June 2015Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery: Phil Shaw
Ultra Vie, 20 May 2016Happy Gallerists at Seattle Art Fair
The Seattle Times, 6 August 2016What is an Antique?
Evening Standard, 7 September 2016Photo London 2017: Read Between the Lines
West London Today , 18 May 2017Photography Is...
Elephant, 18 May 2017Phil Shaw at iPhoto
iPhoto Central , 20 June 2017Phil Shaw
Wall Street International, 14 September 2017Phil Shaw: Reality Imitated on the Bookshelf
Esse, 10 December 2017Exposed; London Art Fair
Cent Magazine, 31 January 2018CF's Gallery Guide to Marylebone and Fitzrovia
Citizen Femme, 8 March 2018Phil Shaw's Shelf Obsession at Skibo Gallery
Skibo, 1 May 2018The Best of Photo London
Culture Whisper, 16 May 2018Photo London Top 5
FAD Magazine, 17 May 2018Phil Shaw Interiors
Hola!, 2 January 2019The Clue is in the Title
Daily Mail, 14 April 2020Bookshelf Art Tells a Story For Our Time
The Times, 23 April 2020