David Shapiro -
Savasan MP 138
American, b.1944
Savasan MP 138, 2000
Monoprint with acrylic, 11.75 x 71 inches
Pegram Harrison Fine Art
00.006
Gift of Judy and J.D. Williamson II (BBA '67, MBA '68)
Shapiro was born in 1944 in New York. He is mainly a painter and printmaker. He is often inspired by eastern culture and ideals. Shapiro creates sophisticated compositions in which color, form, and texture combine to evoke a deeply meditative consciousness and tranquility.
David Shapiro has been preoccupied for over a decade with developing an extended series of prints and monoprints entitled Savasan. The standardized format for each work is an elongated rectangle composed of six square sheets of assorted papers collaged together. Savasan MP138 is a unique print that the artist hand-brushed with Acrylic paint. Like other images in the series, it transforms the modernist language of geometric abstraction into mystical diagrams and symbols, reminiscent of ancient pictographs. The word "savasan" is a Yoga term for the reclined body position. The patterns that fill the six squares - circle, plaids, crisscrossed grid, checkerboard and mottled polka dots - refer elliptically to cardinal body points, each with its own identity. Assembling the various parts of his collage into a single, unified horizontal, Shapiro offers an abstract metaphor for the recumbent human body.
