Beth Shaw’s work probes the hidden poetics of the urban landscape. In her Found Constructions series, she composes meticulously arranged photographic grids—each drawn from the raw, often overlooked textures of city life. With the sensibility of a poet and the precision of a documentarian, Shaw elevates visual fragments of decay and infrastructure into evocative formal compositions. These works do not merely record—they transmute. Each grid invites the viewer to reencounter the ordinary with reverence, curiosity, and a renewed sense of wonder.
Origin: New York City
Currently Exhibiting in: Bushwick, Brooklyn
Website: bethshawfoundconstruction.com
Instagram: @bethshawfoundconstruction
Beth Kobliner Shaw is a celebrated journalist, author, and artist whose multifaceted career reflects a commitment to both intellectual clarity and creative depth. Best known for her New York Times bestselling books on financial literacy and her work with the Obama administration’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability for Young Americans, Shaw has long championed accessibility and insight in the public sphere.
In 2015, she expanded her practice into visual art through the medium of photography, crafting what she terms Found Constructions. These nine-image digital grids are composed entirely of unaltered photographs—captured with an iPhone and arranged to reveal unexpected aesthetic symmetries in the chaotic surfaces of the city. Rust, peeling paint, zip ties, and street detritus become luminous, gestural marks; their juxtaposition unfolds emotional narratives rooted in texture, mood, and time.
Shaw’s work has been exhibited at the Clio Art Fair, Leila Heller Gallery, and the Hamptons Showhouse, and has been acquired into several prominent private collections in New York City and Long Island. Her practice is deeply informed by her decades in journalism: attentive to nuance, driven by inquiry, and always seeking resonance beneath the surface.
Featured Artwork at Bushwick Gallery
Biochem Jamboree is a chromatic symphony of urban ephemera—nine fragments from the city’s visual unconscious, reassembled into a dynamic and unexpected whole. Vivid hues of cobalt, tangerine, and acid green punctuate the surface, creating a sense of vibrant dissonance. Each image is captured as-is, without staging or manipulation, and later composed into a tactile visual matrix. Shaw’s process of selection and arrangement echoes both scientific taxonomy and poetic improvisation, suggesting that beauty lies not in the object itself, but in the act of attentive seeing.
- Found Construction #22
- Biochem Jamboree, 2020
- Photography/digital media
- 54 X 54 in
- $10,000
- Found Construction #77
- Surprise, 2014
- Photography/digital media
- 32 X 32 in
- $2,500
- Found Construction #83
- Cartoon Dots, 2020
- Photography/digital media
- 32 X 32 in
- $2,500
- Found Construction #12
- Worn, 2022
- Photography/digital media
- 26 X 26 in
- $1,800
- Found Construction #158
- Dusk, 2014
- Photography/digital media
- 26 X 26 in
- $1,800
- Found Construction #5
- Construction Site, 2011
- Photography/digital media
- 26 X 26 in
- $1,800
- Found Construction #178
- Forest Walk, 2024
- Photography/digital media
- 26 X 26 in
- $1,800
Exhibition Information
April 2025: Urban Narratives: The City as Canvas
Curated by: Fern Messa Joson
Theme: Turning the cityscape into a canvas, this exhibition captures the raw, vibrant energy of urban life through graffiti, street photography, painting, and more.
Exhibition Dates: April 3 – April 10, 2025
Opening Reception: Thursday, April 3 | 6 PM – 8 PM
Guided audio experience
For accessibility, the full video transcript is provided below for those who prefer to read or are unable to listen.
“Step closer and let your eyes wander. Biochem Jamboree isn’t a single image—it’s nine. A grid of moments. A mosaic of urban fragments. But what might first look like randomness quickly reveals rhythm, color, and composition. This is the heart of Beth Shaw’s Found Constructions—a visual practice rooted in the poetry of attention.
Each square here is a photograph captured as-is—unstaged, unedited, and pulled from the raw texture of the city. Rusted metal, splattered paint, stray zip ties, decaying signage. Together, they form a kind of chromatic chant: cobalt, acid green, tangerine. These aren’t traditional beauties. They’re remnants, overlooked bits of infrastructure. But through Shaw’s eye—and her exacting arrangement—they become luminous.
Notice how some panels pulse with color while others offer quiet contrast. There’s a sense of scientific taxonomy at work—categorizing, observing, isolating. And yet there’s play, too. Improvisation. The title Biochem Jamboree hints at that fusion—of method and movement, analysis and celebration.
Trained as a journalist and known for her bestselling work in financial literacy, Shaw brings a unique duality to her art. Precision meets intuition. Inquiry meets emotion. With each grid, she asks us to reconsider the world we pass by every day.
Biochem Jamboree doesn’t just show us what’s there—it reminds us how to see. Not with speed, but with reverence. Not for the grand, but for the forgotten.”