Sometimes we love what artists create because of its aesthetic beauty, sometimes its abstractions intrigue us with their ambiguity or sometimes its concepts message us, sometimes it catches hold of atime, place or memory. Other art, like Frances Bacon’s paintings, or the works of Egon Schiele or social realists like Bernece Berkman examine the human condition.
Though she categorizes herself as a figurative expressionist, Laura Shabott’s work blends a bit of all these templates. Shabott herself is a life force and that force expresses itself in her originality, now in “You Only Get One Body,” an exhibition at the Cape Cod Museum of Art (CCMOA).
“The whole show really is about drawing and painting the figure from life,” she explained. “When you work with different models they are all very unique — not just physically but energetically, and each model brings out a different kind of drawing.”
This is Shabott’s first solo museum show, and, as her curator David Perry said, “It’s a very big deal,” the culmination of years of committed persistence.
Full disclosure: I have known Shabott for 20 years; we acted together at the Provincetown Theater in “The House of Blue Leaves,” and she recommended me for this magazine.