Off The Wall

Off the Wall is a curated series of layered paint fragments collected near the flood wall in downtown St. Louis during Paint Louis, the city’s annual graffiti mural event. Each year, as artists prepare their assigned sections, many scrape away encrusted layers of paint left behind from previous iterations. These discarded remnants—compressed histories of gesture, color, and narrative—become the primary raw material for this work.

I was drawn to the fragments scattered across the ground, their surfaces warped by heat and sun. Misshapen yet resilient, fragile yet dense, the pieces cary visible traces of accumulated energy and emotion. Gritty and grimy, some embedded with stones and debris, the fragments reveal unexpected moments of raw beauty and organic simplicity. Their layered skins function as both record and residue—evidence of cycles of creation, erasure, and renewal.

As in much of my artistic practice, I gather what speaks to me intuitively and bring it into the studio, where I look, wait, and experiment—allowing the material to guide its own becoming. Collected over several years of the Paint Louis event, these fragments embody impermanence while resisting extinction. Shaw reshaped the discarded shards, refining the edges to accentuate the material’s natural movement.Once reconfigured, they shift from detritus to form, inhabiting a space between sculpture and painting, artifact and abstraction.

Collectively, the pieces blur the boundary between art and life, challenging traditional notions of fine art and aligning with ideas introduced by the Arte Povera movement in Italy in the 1960s.

I want to acknowledge and honor the graffiti artists whose layered, weathered work forms the foundation of this project. The fragments that became my medium began as intentional acts of creative expression. They carry the histories and voices of the artists who first brought them into being.

Currently On Exhibition at Bruno David Gallery until April 11, 2026.