Van Doren Waxter is pleased to present a two-person exhibition of new works by Joshua Nathanson and Erin Jane Nelson, on view at 23 East 73rd Street from May 30 through July 12, 2019. The exhibition features oil paintings by Nathanson and ceramic sculptures as well as textiles by Nelson, both of whom deploy hybridity and humor as a lure and a tool for exploring complex personal, social, and ecological vulnerabilities.
Joshua Nathanson’s human-scaled paintings draw from diverse visual sources to bridge digital, physical, and psychological realms. In a multi-valent process of transcription across media, Nathanson uses iPad drawing apps, Photoshop, and inkjet printers to form digital studies of stream-of-consciousness sketches. These studies are then translated again, forming the basis for paintings on canvas aimed at extending the experience of viewing the vibrant studies on-screen. Nathanson uses handmade oil sticks and paint to achieve this effect, producing vivid palettes, lush compositions, and layered surfaces whose material origins are difficult to ascertain. His incorporation of both traditional and digital techniques embraces the promise and the anxiety of converging synthetic and natural realities; his paintings’ protagonists—anthropomorphized plants, fruits and vegetables—are disarming allegories for daily life in all its pleasure, banality, and uncertainty.
Atlanta-based artist Erin Jane Nelson often works in series; artworks on view draw from photographs the artist took of sites with fraught cultural histories along coastal regions and barrier islands of the Southeast, which are rapidly changing and disappearing due to climate change. These photographs and others of her surroundings and lived experiences throughout her upbringing in the American south serve as starting points for the collaged elements in her sculptures. Drawing from vernacular southern craft tradition, Nelson suspends pigment prints and other found objects amidst layers of resin and glazed stoneware. The resulting wall-mounted ceramics suggest other-worldly souvenirs, documenting vanishing landscapes and proposing altered narratives for their conflicted legacies and futures.
About the Artists:
Joshua Nathanson (b. 1976) received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, NY and his MFA from Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA. He has held solo exhibitions at Yuz Museum, Shanghai, China; Downs and Ross, New York, NY; Luce Gallery, Turin, Italy; Kaikai Kiki Gallery, Tokyo, Japan and at Various Small Fires, Los Angeles. Other venues which have recently hosted Nathanson’s work include the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; Yuz Museum, Shanghai, China; Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK; Yokohama Museum, Yokohama, Japan; ARNDT, Singapore and 356 S. Mission, Los Angeles, CA. Nathanson’s work has been written about in Frieze magazine and Artforum and is part of the permanent collections of Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, IL and the Yuz Museum, Shanghai, China. Nathanson lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
Erin Jane Nelson (b. 1989) received her BFA from the Cooper Union School of Art in 2011. Her work has recently been exhibited in “Between the Waters” at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and “Photography Today: Public Private Relations” at Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich. Nelson’s solo exhibition Her Deepness is currently on view at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, GA. Recent solo exhibitions include Psychompompopolis at Document, Chicago, IL (2017); and Dylan at Hester, New York, NY (2015). Her work has been reviewed in publications such as Art in America, The Chicago Tribune, and Cultured Magazine, among others. The artist has contributed to publications including BURNAWAY, The Creative Independent, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, and Art Papers, and has curated exhibitions at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta Contemporary, and elsewhere. Nelson lives and works in Atlanta, GA.