Wally Workman Gallery will open their 7th solo show with local painter Ian Shults. Taunting societal taboos with bold brushstrokes and sly editing skills, Shults’ figurative paintings are lusciously cinematic. Each piece is broken up by planes and layers of paint, causing an asymmetry that serves to break up the painting's space as well as the layers of time captured. Shults’ paintings recall a bygone era when the sheen of the American Dream dulled; his focus, the dynamic between the patriarchy and feminism. This show, filled with lust, loss, and libations, conveys a sense of unabashed mischief.

Ian Shults was chosen as #35 on the Oxford American's Top 100 Southern Artists in 2012.

Finish this sentence, sure, but then put the goddam paper down or step away from the screen and haul your ass up West Sixth to see this first show by local painter Ian Shults. That's the best advice we can give a fellow citizen right now, as the Workman Gallery decks its walls with the deconstructed vintage reprobates and swingers, all mid-century seersucker and clandestine hanky-panky, rendered in stunning acrylics by this hotshot with a brush and a brain.

(The Austin Chronicle, July 9, 2010)

Ian Shults' paintings forge fine art and the profane to tell sordid tales of debauchery with a sly sense of humor. His paintings recall a bygone era when the sheen of the American Dream dulled, and subversive behavior of illicit drugs and kinky benders were swept under the rug. Ian spent eight years as the Lead Illustrator and Head Sculptor at Blue Genie Art, where his ideas and vision accounted for much of the look of the various sculptures and illustrations produced at the shop.