The work of Belfast born sculptor Tim Shaw came to prominence via the impact created by his 2007 residency at the Armitage Foundation in West London.

Shaw (b.1964) depicted the unrelenting horror of the Abu Graihb jail in Baghdad. Entering an unprepossessing house in Hammersmith visitors found themselves confronted by the shock of an all too real simulation of the terror cell, an image made familiar by constant press usage - one of the signature images of the war.

Walking from the street into a room filled with sand, bridged by an oil slick and attended by harsh intermittent lighting and a pumping heart-valve soundbed, visitors were struck dumb by the recreation of the cell and the dark almost-sacred atmosphere conjured by Shaw for his abuse nightmare from wrought iron, black baling plastic and straw to cast and bring to life his hooded victim/icon. The shadow across the path of the prisoner in the installation's title Casting A Dark Democracy being the pool of crude oil.

In November, Shaw will make his debut at Riflemaker with a Nativity installation set within the street-culture of the sculptor's teenage Belfast years - the mid 1970s.

Tim Shaw has exhibited widely throughout the UK and Ireland. In 2005, he was awarded The Prince's Bursary, and became resident artist at the British School of Athens. The Kenneth Armitage Fellowship followed in 2007. Shaw's work is included in many public and private contemporary collections.

In 2009 he received critical acclaim for his installation Casting A Dark Democracy - a depiction of abuse suffered by prisoners in the Abu Graihb prison as detailed by the 2004 Taguba Report.

A NATIVITY: SOUL SNATCHER POSSESSION opens on Monday 23 November

'Casting a Dark Democracy'

CASTING A DARK DEMOCRACY
Figure (Steel Frame), barbed wire, black Polythene, electrical cable
530 cm (h) x 300 cm (w) x 100 cm (l) 2008

+ Room Installation: oil pool, 600 cm x 350 cm (w), sand on floor, sound, light, mist

During summer 2010 Tim Shaw will exhibit Parliament: mixed media room installation: rooks in straw, wire, black plastic; office furniture and sound, from 15 May - 15 August 2010 at

F.E. McWilliam Gallery & Studio
200 Newry Road, Banbridge
Co. Down, Northern Ireland
BT32 3NB
+44 (0)28 40623322

Parliament is an installation which comprises twenty-five rooks running amok within an ordinary office space. The birds are fashioned in black baling plastic, hay and wire; the work inspired by a two week residency this past winter at an artists' retreat in the west of Ireland.

"After two days of sitting idle, and anxious at not knowing what to do with myself in this cold, baron landscape; shapes began to emerge from out of the corner of my eye as I stared through the window. Black plastic snagged on barbed-wire began to conjure shapes, mischievous and sinister, taking the form of windswept crows and rooks.

Observing the behaviour of the birds, it seemed natural that their cries should merge with the voices of those in a position of power and influence as they debate within a theatre of flock mayhem"

Tim Shaw, Cornwall, Summer 2010