This is the full review by Joanne Silver of my January 2013 show at
Arden Gallery. It was published in the May 2013 issue of ART NEWS
(page 106) but there is no online link directly to it. "With their
orderly arrangements of book spines, cut-up paintings, patinated
metal, and other recycled objects, the 15 mixed-media-on-panel
works in Nancy Natale's exhibition 'The Resonance of Time'
resembled jazzy brick walls, mortared by colored encaustic wax.
These artworks dazzled with color, from the pinks (and Pink Panther
memorabilia) of 'Symphonie Fantastique' (2012) and the undersea
blues of 'A Novel by George' (2012) to the more syncopated hues of
'Mystic Vikings' (2012). Hammered tacks added to the handmade feel
of the compositions. The tacks' dotted rhythms suggested musical
notes, inserted to accompany the collaged slices of sheet music,
album covers, and books about composers. Lined up in careful rows,
the hardware also recalled stitches, harnessing the lush geometries
of pieced quilts. The paintings' titles capture the disjunctions
and coincidences lurking within their borders. Among the
poly-chromatic stacks of rectangles in 'Mystic Vikings,' for
example, the spine of a Landmark book on the Vikings lies on its
side, as does another from a volume about mystics. The multiple
visual relationships contained within each work--juxtapositions of
color, pattern, and texture--allow viewers to discover personal
meanings and associations. A sliver of copper or an album cover
might call to mind a particular place. Or the eclectic scraps might
simply exist as a 'symphonie fantastique' of their own, a medley of
diverse elements brought into unison. Awash in deep reds, 'This
American Time' (2012) contains multitudes--to borrow Walt Whitman's
words. In it, various magazines from different eras (including
TIME), a POPULAR MECHANICS encyclopedia, and slices of assorted
paintings occupy a quasi-architectural framework of verticals and
horizontals. If their individual ingredients have become worn with
age, Natale's completed constructions have gained vitality from
time's visible residue."
The full review, published on January 15, 2013, is quoted below.
"With their luxuriant tones, Nancy Natale’s mixed-media encaustic
works at Arden Gallery have something in common with Risoli’s
paintings, although they’re more contemplative and less exuberantly
freaky." "Natale nails onto a panel long rows of ephemera — book
spines, snippets of musical notation, handwritten notes, shreds of
album covers — along with slats of copper, rubber, and more. They
jitter over the surface along a given theme — “Symphonie
Fantastique,” for instance, celebrates Henry Mancini’s theme to the
“Pink Panther” movies — and she selectively coats them in pigmented
wax. Pink, in this case." "The Pink Panther piece is light and fun,
but Natale goes deeper in larger works, such as the ruby-toned
“This American Time,” one of the rare pieces here that features
vertical as well as horizontal slats. The verticals give the piece
a syncopated rhythm. The result is nearly musical." "The content
includes red-mottled strips of handwriting, white slots with black
decorative and gestural loops, and an ad declaring, “These men are
building lifetime businesses!” There’s something ruminative about
all these elements together. They may not seem connected, but they
coalesce into something fervent, intimate, and hopeful."
In her well-known art blog, Joanne writes about my solo show at
Arden Gallery, Boston. "Nancy Natale, an artist due for some
serious attention, has the window at Arden Gallery this month. Her
show, The Resonance of Time, is up through January 28.
Metaphorically and physically, Natale pieces together disparate
elements--cultural and industrial remnants: book spines, metal
snippets, painting strips--into a mashup of memory and emotion. The
work is from her Running Stitch series, but it's not stitched.
Everything is held together with tacks in a kind of polyrhythmic
syncopation to the horizontally placed elements. You might think of
quilts or stained glass, or maybe the organization of information
when your computer is in the process of defragmenting. It's all
there visually. Natale invites you to make sense of it on your own
terms." 1/15/2013
Excerpt from the post in Boston Art Review: "Natale's work in
particular arranges tones of color into a unified key, usually
through a limited range of hue or value in each piece. To put it
simply, you could say "the red one" and we'd know what you mean,
but there's a wealth of complexity forming that red. Piet Mondrian
comes to mind, though the antecedent I see most strongly is the
facade of Le Corbusier's Cité Radieuse. But any references you
might see here will almost certainly be Modernist, and that helps
to draw us towards these pieces."
This video shows the exhibition installation of "Exponential: 4
Artists Explore Infinity," an exhibition of work by Catherine
Carter, Sand T. Kalloch, Nancy Natale and Jeanne Williamson at Mt.
Ida College, Newton, Mass., January 29 - March 2, 2013. Catherine
Carter is also the exhibition's curator.
Excerpts from the August 13, 2012 review of my solo show at R & F
Paints, Kingston, New York "Collaged from magazines, children’s
books and other print sources and embellished with applications of
tinted encaustic, the works resemble aerial views from a tilting
jet. It’s a map of babble that’s loud but meaningless, exuberant
but vacant, as if visual media has run amok, swallowing whole
cities. A virtual world turned inside out with nothing left to
refer to except itself...." "Natale’s assemblages are quilt-like in
their construction, but not in sensibility. In their evocations of
black leather andTimes Square, clubs and marquees, the blues and
television they are a millennium jump away from the quilting
bee...." 8/13/2012
Nancy Natale at Arden Gallery If Nancy Natale is not known to the
New York art world she should be. Her small solo show at Arden
Gallery on Newbury Street is from a series of recent works called
Running Stitch. There’s no thread in these constructed paintings,
however. Composed of castoff book parts, rubber strips, metal and
other materials, they have been laid out and tacked into
assemblages that are equal parts formal beauty and polyrhythmic
muscle. If I wanted to be flip I would say that Natale’s work is
the love child of Lee Bontecou and El Anatsui. But that would be
unfair to an artist who has forged a vision that is quite her own.
Artist info here. The exhibition is up through July 30.