Still Life | Drawings and Painting

“’Blue Poles’ (1984) is another striking example of this conscription of representation to the ends of abstraction. In this case the subject is a still life, mostly the legs of stools, wood blocks and draped and folded paper. However, the composition is so festooned with colorful objects and interruptions in the certainty of continuous line that even the most structural components succumb to visual decomposition. In this piece too, Shank employs with particular success a technique which appears frequently in his work. To all of the frenetic visual structure already in place, he adds a number of torn and colored strips of paper, and expected though these shapes may be given the subject, they are laid suggestively upon the surface as trompe l’oeil, and with this singular complication the painting obtains further dimension and gains considerable complexity.”

- Hesse Caplinger
Retrospective is 20/20, Examiner.com, April 13, 2009

“As Shank and his work moved towards the 1990s, his vision sharpened. Robert Stein likens these pictures, which are gouache on paper, to that of the painter Giorgio Morandi because of their elegance and ethereal beauty, and that is an apt comparison.”

“But as you walk along through time with these pictures, you notice a tightening of focus, an increasing mastery of materials, a constant refinement, a sense of ever-keener observation and discovery. And you realize that Shank’s vision is his alone: singular, commendable, satisfying.”

- Robert W. Duffy
Paul Shank’s Object of Focus. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 10, 1994

“Shank’s still lifes are so expertly and lovingly rendered, one could see him building a career on them alone. In works like ‘Mapson’s Perfection’ and ‘Still Life with Block’ (both gouache on paper, 1995), Shank’s rendering of objects achieves solidity of form and intriguing surface textures, all played out against studies in abstraction. Indeed, one of the most gratifying aspects of Shank’s work is the way he weaves techniques of 20th century abstract movements into his works. In ‘The Rout of San Romano’ (2003, gouache and pastel on paper), he nods to the elemental forms of Kasimir Malevich as well as the gestural, sketchy landscapes of both Wassily Kandinsky and Arthur Dove.”

- Ivy Cooper
Paul Shank Builds Grace into Variety. St. Louis Beacon, March 30, 2009