Bike, Backpack, Lollipop, Partial Denture, Flute, and Shuttlecock

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While a previous body of Shawn Powell’s work focused on subjects that might be found on a beach, he recently revealed dedication to a new location in his 2022 exhibition titled PARK. Retaining the motif of a strictly top-down viewpoint, these new works depict the world from a hovering perspective above a field of grass. Other paintings from this group include a picnic blanket, a notebook, a paper airplane, a metal detector, a crutch, and—in greater numbers via shaped canvases, some of them thinned out into rings—parasols and hula hoops. Many of these works have subtle details that encourage scrutiny of the particularities of vision, as when a magnifying glass enlarges a view of the screws holding together a park bench. Most of all, the shadows behind Powell’s many objects can move viewers to careful consideration. In Bike, Backpack, Lollipop, Partial Denture, Flute, and Shuttlecock, all of the titular items are seen from an immediately top-down view and thus flattened into a single plane. However, all of them cast shadows and thereby seem to be ever-so-slightly above ground level. Moreover, while most of them have immediately proximate shadows, the shuttlecock casts a more distant bit of shade, suggesting that it is actually flying higher over its neighbors. Shadows likewise helpfully suggest the vertical extension of the bicycle’s handlebars, but they also become unreliable as visual clues—how can the shuttlecock cast a shadow upward while the bike casts one downward and the backpack is surrounded by dimness on all sides? This oddness compounds with the strange group of objects that Powell has brought together—what story can one imagine to coherently explain the partial denture, the flute, and the flying shuttlecock? All together, the artist presents an image that is detailed to the point of feeling highly realistic, yet uncanny to a degree that causes uncertainty. The push and pull of these qualities yields a captivating experience that unfolds slowly and encourages close attention.

Keywords

Visual culture
Video games
Cassette
Movies
Comics
Representation
Amalgamation
Kitschy
Cinematic
Backpack
Flute
Candy
Grass
Green
Outdoors