James Shaw British, b. 1987

James Shaw
b. 1987. Currently lives and works in London, UK.
 
James Shaw is a London-based designer who makes objects and furniture. His work aims to bring out the inherent beauty of diverse materials, often uniting or contrasting handmade and tactile qualities with the structured and systematised. Frequently his work considers the resources around us, challenging the notions of “waste” and “value”. He is probably best known for his work with recycled plastics, and his self-built extruding gun, which produces blobby, gloopy and baroque forms, creating objects of unexpected beauty from a problematic material. 
 
Shaw has collaborated with a range of arts institutions and public organisations, including staging a recent solo exhibition at Studio Voltaire, London. His work is held in the permanent collections of MoMA, The V&A, MAK Vienna, The Montreal Museum of Art, Design Museum Ghent and The Museum of London, among others. 

 

 

EDUCATION

Royal College of Art, 2011 - 2013 MA Design Products 

Kingston University, 2006 – 2010 BA (Hons) Product and Furniture Design

University College Falmouth, 2005 – 2006 Foundation Studies Art and Design

 

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS­

2024 Cob Gallery, London, UK (forthcoming)

2023 Strange Friends, Hauser & Wirth, London, UK

2022 Two Kettles No Sofa, SEEDS London, UK

2022 House of Voltaire Presents James Shaw, Studio Voltaire, London, UK

2021 Waste Age, Design Museum London, UK

2020 Kleureyck, Design Museum Ghent, Belgium

2019 Make ,Hauser & Wirth, Somerset, UK

2019 Collectible Curates Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Paris, France

2019 Masters of Disguise, Seeds Gallery, London, UK

2019 Guiltless Plastic Masters, Museo Scienza e Technologia, Milan, Italy

2019 Plastics Library, Nairobi National Museum, Nairobi, Kenya

2018 PlasticScene, Gasholders, London, UK

2018 Images Through Time, Tresor Wildt’sches Haus Basel, Switzerland

2018 Legacy, Schloss Hollenegg, Austria

2018 Man and Machine, Brussels, Belgium

2018 Matter, Toronto, Canada

2017 Ready Made Go, Ace Hotel, London, UK

2017 The New Materiality, Tresor, Basel, Switzerland

2017 Whist Objects For A Virtual Reality, Touring from April 2017

2017 Domestic Appeal Chamber NYC, New York, USA

2016 The Plinth Project, Etage Projects, Copenhagen, Denmark

2016 Joints + Bones, The Aram Gallery, London, UK

2016 Furniture is Not Working Brompton Design District, London, UK

2016 A Fayre Village, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland

2016 Pure Talents, Cologne, Germany

2015 Home Sweet Home, Budapest, Hungary

2015 The Art of Progress, 19 Greek Street, London, UK

2015 Design Experiments for the Common Good, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, USA

2015 Örnsbergsauktionen. Galleri Bon, Stockholm, Sweden

2014 Atemporaneo, A Palazzo Gallery, Brescia, Italy

2014 Future Stars?, Aram Gallery, London, UK

2014 Stand By 10 RCA Alumni from 10 Years, Salone del Mobile, Milan, Italy

2013 Convoi Exceptional. Strijp, Eindhoven, Netherlands

2013 Maszyna do Lemoniady, Ethnographic Museum, Warsaw, Poland

2013 Wonderland, 19 Greek Street, London, UK

2013 RCA Graduate Exhibition. Royal College of Art, London, UK

2013 Designs of the Year. Design Museum, London, UK

2012 Out of the Woods, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK

2012 Bureau Odyssey, Reykjavik, Iceland

 

COLLECTIONS

MAK Vienna, January 2022 

Denver Art Museum, April 2020 

Museum of London, January 2020 

National Gallery of Victoria, June 2017 

The Montreal Museum of Art, December 2015

MoMA. New York: May 2014

Volker Albus Collection. Germany: March 2014

Vitra Design Museum. Weil am Rhein: November 2013

Fiorucci Arts Trust. London: March 2013