ASPEN, CO.- Moving easily between the mediums of painting, drawing, and sculpture, artist Alan Shields (1944–2005) exemplified a deep consideration of material and color through his practice. Interested in opening up a broader context in which art could be experienced, Shields created objects that hang freely in space and are experienced in relation to the movement of the human body. His brightly colored, layered works illustrate Shields’s belief in a direct connection between art and life, revealing a multifaceted practice that merges the sculptural, the painterly, and the theatrical.

Alan Shields (b. 1944, Herington, KS; d. 2005, Shelter Island, NY) attended Kansas State University (1963–66) where he studied civil engineering and studio art. Museum exhibitions include: Alan Shields: In Motion, Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY (2015), Into the Maze, SITE Santa Fe, NM (2014), Stirring Up the Waters, Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY (2007), Alan Shields: A Survey, the Beach Museum of Art, Kansas State University (1999), 1968–1983: The Work of Alan Shields, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, TN (1983), traveled to Lowe Art Museum, Coral Gables, FL, and Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, and Alan Shields: Paintings and Prints, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA (1981).

Raised in a community steeped in creativity as a part of everyday life and characterized by a strong ethos to save and recycle, artist John Outterbridge has been composing sculpture from found and discarded materials and debris—including rags, rubber, and scrap metal—for more than fifty years. The exhibition John Outterbridge: Rag Man was organized by the Hammer Museum and initially presented at artist Mark Bradford’s Art + Practice space in Leimert Park, Los Angeles, and focuses on work made since 2000—sculptures and assemblages composed of materials such as tools, twigs, bone, and hair.

John Outterbridge (b. 1933, Greenville, NC) studied at the American Academy of Art in Chicago in the 1950s. In 1994, he received an honorary doctorate of fine arts from Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles. He cofounded the Communicative Arts Academy in Compton, where he was Artistic Director from 1969 to 1975, and was Director of the Watts Towers Art Center from 1975 to 1992. A survey of his work was presented in 1993 at the African American Museum in Los Angeles, and he had a solo exhibition at LA>