If you have an interest in contemporary digital art, popsurrealism or the so-called lowbrow genre, you have surely heard about Natalie Shau. Natalie Shau is a digital artist who was born in Vilnius, Lithuania in 1984. She refers to herself as a mixed media artist and photographer with an interest in fashion and portrait photography as well as digital illustration and photo art. Some go as far as to describe her as a world-famous female representative of the hi-tec avant-garde of figurative art and leading illustrator and photographer in the digital art scene. However, none of her shorter or longer biographies published on the internet make clear whether the Lithuanian ever attended art school at all or whether she is a mere autodidact. Considering the absence of any reference to an art education in her biographies, one rather has to assume the latter.
Shau’s artistic development went from crude stick figure-like drawings she made as a 22-year old, over surreal women in front of incredibly crowded backgrounds with lacking depth of field to her current style of surreal women in front of less crowded backgrounds with more depth of field. Over the years, the artist, as we know her today, has developed to become one of the biggest producers of digital imagery in popsurrealism.
Shau’s first works are crude stick figure-like drawings the artist made at the age of 22 years old in 2006:
Natalie Shau: Spider Baby and Valentine’s Day (2006)
In the years following 2006, her work continued on over surreal women against immensely crowded backgrounds with an obvious lack in depth of field:
Natalie Shau: Works from 2006 to 2008
Today, Shau is one of the biggest producers of digital imagery whose first and foremost mission seems to be -producing- digital images. Her images are characterized by being put together with the same stock over and over again. The same digital elements are being fiddled together again and again to produce new images. Hair, faces, clothes, animals, plants, flowers, bows – you will surely not find the same thing only once in Shau’s body of work but two, three or even more times.
Her digital editing is partly extremely unclean, untidy and unprofessional. The result of different images being fiddled together hastily without the necessary thoroughness. After having worked for about ten years in digital art, she should be able to do better. Absolutely incomprehensible. Is it lacking skill or disinterest?
Even pictures of the artist that are exhibited in galleries or which are commissioned works are an example of unclean, flawed digital work.
Altogether, Shau is simply no comparison to high-class popsurrealist artists such as Ray Caesar, Oleg Dou, or digital artist MichealO, to just name a few, whose every image is a unique, thoughtfully put together masterpiece.
So let’s have a look at some of Shau’s recent “artworks”. The below is a detail from the work “White Queen” made by the artist in 2011. The close-up is sold by the artist on her Etsy account the way we see it below. The editing of the lace around the face is strikingly unclean, several spots have obviously been blurred out to cover up transitions of the visual elements. A fact that becomes obvious at first glance. Are 83.85USD (the price the artist wants for a print http://www.etsy.com/transaction/164322132?) really a good investment to have an amateurishly blurred image hanging on the wall?
Natalie Shau: White Queen, Detail (2011)
Just another example of Shau’s most recent creations: Lady Macbeth produced in 2013. The image below can be found as such on the artist’s Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153126493165228). Shocking but true: the hair could not have been cut out worse by a photomanipulation apprentice! Unclean cutouts with the black background remaining, untidy hair work with lines that have been forgotten to be removed. Pretty embarrassing. Every beginning photomanipulator can do better. But not embarrassing enough: the artist did not even fix it for her solo show at Dorothy Circus Gallery in Rome where Macbeth was one of the pieces exhibited.
Natalie Shau: Lady Macbeth (2013)
Another piece that was exhibited with all featured blunders and bloopers at Dorothy Circus Gallery is “How They Met Themselves”. Have a look at the close-up below and you will immediately notice the same unclean edits, remaining lines where different hair elements have not been smoothly merged together. Delivering quality for international showrooms is obviously not Shau’s strength.
Natalie Shau: Detail from How They Met Themselves (2013), exhibited at Dorothy Circus Gallery, Rome, Italy
The same with “Nemesis”, a recent work from 2013. Impressive photomanipulation, unfortunately the corset looks awkwardly wrong. When looking at the image, the eye is immediately drawn to this distressing center of the image and one must wonder ”Did she not notice herself?”
Natalie Shau: Nemesis (2013) impressive image unfortunately the corset looks awkwardly wrong
Commissioned works, however, are no exception to the general laxity. Pictures made for French jewelry designer Lydia Courteille blunder as much as all of Shau’s works. To just give one example, the Lydia Courteille jewelry campaign in 2013. Look at the picture below and you will notice the bunch of hair slapped on digitally. You see the obvious cut between the fake hair and the model’s real hair and differences in color and texture. Again, things like that usually happen only to a beginner, but well, if French buddy Lydia is happy with the result, what does it matter?
Commercial project: Natalie Shau for Lydia Courteille, Amazonia (2013)
Stephen Webster, British jewelry designer, was not so happy with the work Shau delivered for his jewelry project: her “Ghostly Winds” re-modeled for the jewelry campaign is a dead loss. The picture is an unparalleled example of ragged work. One must think the poor creature is suffering from hair loss. Altogether, a view that rather repels customers instead of attracting them. On that note, the first and last collaboration Shau ever had with Webster.
Commercial project: Natalie Shau for Stephen Webster Jewelry, Ghostly Winds (2012), published in Solitaire Magazine
Besides all the blundering, Shau’s works are not unique, meaning when Shau composes a new picture, she doesn’t make the effort to effectively create a new work which is unique in its components. Each image is rather made up from the same elements which are being used over and over and over again. And this does not only concern the minor “unimportant” accessories, no, Shau does not shy away from using the major, prominent elements again and yet again. The following is just a selection which makes this fact shockingly obvious.
The outstanding hairdo, first used in Desolation in 2011, is obviously what makes up image. The reuse, unfortunately, reduces the uniqueness of both pictures.
Natalie Shau: Desolation (2011) and version for Lydia Courteille (2013)
Same thing with the digital face mask: once doubtlessly unique in “luv u” from 2012 and the central motif in the picture. However, in 2013, Shau uses it again to fiddle together some new work. Change in color, different face, some new surrounding elements and here comes the new “artwork”: Lucy, 2013.
Natalie Shau: luv u (2012) and Lucy (2013)
What works with the mask, works of course with the hair, too. The two vibrantly red hair pieces from “Velvet”, 2013, are good enough for two images in 2013. So Lydia Courteille gets honored with the same two pieces of hair slapped on.
Natalie Shau: Velvet (2013) and for Lydia Courteille (2013)
Why bother to design new accessories? In Shau’s pragmatic world, everything is being recycled. Sometimes, even more than one time in one image:
Natalie Shau: TEARDROP (2013) and Ride (2012)
Let’s talk hair again: the turquoise curls from “luv u”, 2012, find a second home in “Lavinia” in 2013. With the mask reused and the hair resused, “luv u” is one of Shau’s images with the highest potential for recycling. The only element of “luv u” which has not yet been ‘recycled’ is the woman’s face. However, not even that is impossible in Shau’s world as we will see later on.
Natalie Shau: luv u (2012) and Lavinia (2013)
And what do we have here again? Exactly, sloppily slapped on pieces of hair as usual as shows us the detail from “Lavinia” below.
Natalie Shau: Lavinia (Detail, 2013)
The two snakes that provide “Lilith” (2013) with a dark, eerie atmosphere can fulfill this function several times, of course. Hence, Shau uses exactly the two of them for another of her productions.
Natalie Shau: Lilith (2013)
And let’s face it: not even faces are too precious to make up for new images. In a word, you can see the mermaid’s face from “Deep is a feeling” from 2011 yet in another picture from 2013. Anybody still wants to call this an “artist”?
Natalie Shau: Deep is a feeling (2011), even entire faces are being used over and over again
However, not only the over and over of the same elements in Shau’s works is an issue, stock elements themselves are an issue, too. As a photomanipulator, Natalie Shau uses stock elements. Nothing wrong with that so far. Her stock elements are mainly from common stock libraries such as depositosphotos and the like. On the other hand, however, lots of the stock elements Shau uses, also come from private stock providers. Many of these private stock providers are artists from deviantArt (deviantart.com), one of the biggest online art communities. These private stock providers create stock themselves and offer them as courtesy for free. In return, manipulators who have used the stock credit the provider in the image description. That’s how it works. And if you browse through manipulations on deviantArt, Facebook, etc., you will notice that the majority of artists respect this system. Not so Natalie Shau. Just as everything else, Shau uses stock elements over and over again in her images. But not one single time does she give credit to the provider. Neither on her Facebook page at facebook.com/natalieshauofficial nor on her deviantArt account at http://www.deviantart.com/natalieshau. Pretty poor for an artist who has achieved as much popularity as Natalie Shau.
So let us have a look at some examples of what stock Shau uses from deviant artists without giving them any credit.
The bramble stock used in “Time stood still”, then again in the make-over for Lydia Courteille as well as in Hiding Place are from private stock provider ‘tinusdream’ from deviantart (tinusdream.deviantart.com). Shau obviously makes generously use of them in her images, however, no single word of acknowledgement is given to the provider.
Natalie Shau: Time stood still and Hiding Place
And once again, we find the same brambles in “Metamorphosis”. Published and exhibited work, however, still no word of thanks is given back to tinusdream.
Natalie Shau: Metamorphosis
And yet another example: the vine brambles provided by Maureen Older from deviantArt (maureenolder.deviantart.com). Shau has made use of this free stock multiple times in various images where the elements play a major role. Again, published and exhibited works. However, no single mention of the stock provider.
And all that despite the fact that Maureen Older explicitly asked to be given credit in the picture description.
Natalie Shau: For Cradle of Filth’s Darkly Venus Aversa album (top left), Velvet (bottom left), Red Wolf Moon (middle)
Lockstock from deviantArt (lockstock.deviantart.com) has as much seen credit as have all the other stock providers that Shau has been ripping off.
The ball jar has at least been used twice by the artist. Lockstock, however, has not been mentioned once.
Natalie Shau: We Are So Fragile and for Cradle of Filth
And last but not least the tentacles. Popular accessory used by Shau in many of her works over and over again. The images are being sold, exhibited, and published in galleries and magazines. Private stock provider zememz from deviantArt (zememz.deviantart.com) is left out in the cold. No single word about the origin of the stock from the artist. Would zememz have provided the stock if he had known he will be ripped off like that by a famous artist?
Natalie Shau: Hysteria (top left), Deep is a Feeling (bottom left), Lilith (top right), Looking glass monsters (bottom right),
Natalie Shau - The Most Overrated Artist in Contemporary Digital Art 