Executed in luminous hues of cobalt, plum, green and yellow, Vulgarian Applique is an exquisite example of Steven Shearer’s nuanced investigation into the genre of portraiture. In a practice that has spanned twenty-five years and a diverse range of media from oil painting and sculpture, to collage, poetry and photography, Shearer amalgamates canonical art history with the imagery of contemporary youth subcultures. The artist himself has explained of this interest in wedding past and present, “I see the contemporary images that I reference as an extension of all historical images. They’re all connected organically. My knowledge of the past helps me enter into and navigate the found images that I use as a starting point. My image archive stems from a serious, almost forensic interest in how images are made, how they’re formed both physically and theoretically. I’m interested in making things that explore how we all remember and idealise each other. Today’s images are echoes of how people have always been depicted, throughout history” (Steven Shearer quoted in: Vanessa Nicholas, “Interview with Steven Shearer,” The White Review, July 2011 (online)).

Evoking the intimate, interior lives of androgynous and often angelic-looking young men, Shearer’s portraiture employs a decidedly Fauvist colour palette, and draws upon the classical figuration of masters such as Rembrandt and Munch, Matisse and Derain. His use of colour is kaleidoscopic, as shadows drawn across the face become a rich greenish-blue, those across the ear a deep purple. The androgynous figure in the present work is set against an abstracted and ambiguous painterly ground. Appearing almost spectre-like on the canvas ground, their vivid eyes directly confronting the viewer. Shearer’s interest in subverting traditional gender boundaries increasingly apparent: “I’m amazed by how long I can spend working towards something or guided by something like gender without having a strong sense of doing it intentionally. Themes seem to emerge without premeditation because I’m driven by compulsion, need. I suppose the androgynous nature of my figures is related to my interest in fashion, how we stylise and manner ourselves for others. It also speaks to my approach to art making, which has never been about physical reality; it’s about fantasy and release. It may be that I naturally gravitate towards androgyny because it reflects the freeing, fluid spirit of creativity that propels me forward. And really, when you think about artists like Gustave Moreau or Da Vinci, their idealized male figures also exist within a still point between the genders… my subjects are male, but they don’t feel exclusively male” (Steven Shearer quoted in: Ibid., (online)). Shearer’s sensitive, classical treatment of the figure is magnificently evident in Vulgarian Applique from 2012-14, which conflates a painterly preoccupation with retro, masculine aesthetics with a Fauvist flare for chromatic saturation and contrast.

Shearer is represented by David Zwirner and Galerie Eva Presenhuber, and in 2023 a solo show of his work will go on view at The George Economou collects ion in Athens. His work resides in a number of prestigious museum collects ions around the world, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich; and Montreal Museum of Replica Handbags s, Montreal.