Shawn Huckins: The Birds Will Sing

GBGLA is pleased to present Shawn Huckins: The Birds Will Sing, the gallery's first solo exhibition of paintings by the Denver-based artist.  The exhibition features Huckins new text and landscape oil paintings and continues through May 8th.

Shawn Huckins is a tour de force of technical skill and wit - referencing our sometimes rosy view of history and our complicated present in these exquisitely painted canvases. This series, “The Birds Will Sing,” takes its title from the sweetly bucolic title of an old Cajun folk song.  The song, instead of following the title’s lead, turns out to be a murder ballad.  This painting series follows in its depiction of what appears at first glance to be simply breathtaking landscapes but which are overlaid with wistfully dark statements about contemporary love.

Huckins’ meticulously hand-painted works are sourced from the public domain and museum collections of classic American paintings.  These landscapes, in the tradition of the great 19th century masters like Bierstadt and the Hudson River School, are paired with text pulled from social media.  These phrases appear in the texting acronyms, digital shorthand, and misspellings of current virtual communication.

The hasty text appears in sharp contrast both in form and content to these landscapes that represent an era when communication (and just about everything else) took time and had to be planned in great detail.  The immediacy and speed of contemporary life deeply impacts our human connections - sometimes for the better and sometimes not. Huckins is pointedly asking if the devolution of language in the face of technological advancement weakens our ability to empathize and connect to one another in a meaningful way.  Personal lives and loves are now lived publicly in a way that is completely new and yet the heartbreak of love remains a thread connecting past and present.   

Shawn Huckins attended Keene State College, Keene, NH, and The University of Wollongong, Australia, and received his BA in Studio Arts in 2006.  His work appears in private and public collections across the country, including The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA, The Tucson Museum of Art, The TIA Collection, and The Vicki Myhren Gallery at The University of Denver. Huckins has received grants from The Haven Foundation of Maine, The Artists’ Fellowship Inc. of New York City, Colorado Creative Industries, and The Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, among others. His work has been featured in notable publications such as Forbes, Juxtapoz, Hi-Fructose Magazine, Huffington Post, New American Paintings, The Jealous Curator, and The Advocate. 5280 Magazine named Huckins as one of five artists to collect now in 2015.  A New Hampshire native, Huckins now lives and works in Denver, Colorado.