Nathan Redwood: wheres my ship
September 7, 2007
Chicago, IL: 40000 is thrilled to kick off its 2007-2008 season with "wheres my ship", a solo exhibition by Los Angeles - based gallery artist Nathan Redwood. Known primarily as a painter working in a neo-surrealist manner, this exhibition marks an exciting move towards sculpture and installation. With a remarkable talent for bringing together narrative and phantasm while mixing in elements of autobiography, "wheres my ship" promises to be as real as it is abstract.
The last few years bear witness to Nathan Redwood's subtle, yet pronounced, transformations as an artist. His 2005 solo exhibition at 40000, "Social D", featured large-scale paintings with creatures, characters and objects deftly painted on solid bright colored backgrounds. However, after his residency at Skowhegan and his subsequent move to LA, Nathan's work became ensconced in a painterly gesture that took over entire canvases. These acrylic and polymer paintings, executed to look like watercolor, investigate a fantastical combination of landscape, debris, architecture and the figure.
The centerpiece of "wheres my ship" represents another step in the artist's growth as an important emerging artist and demonstrates his unabashed disinterest with formulaic processes. For this show Nathan will create a site-specific installation constructed with found objects, detritus and building supplies collected in and around Chicago during the weeks preceding the opening. By blowing up the two-dimensional, Nathan creates a "real-time" scenario wherein viewers become willing -- or unwilling -- participants in the artist's eccentric material narrative.
