Purple Diary

[July 13 2011]

The Bo'sun's Chair, (2011), 57 Hemlock logs, terracotta, wood, string, nutria fur, wax, fabric, indigo pigment, bronze and galvanized nails by Peter Nadin

PETER NADIN’S NEW SOLO SHOW at gavin brown’s enterprise, new york

The artist and poet Peter Nadin’s first New York exhibition in
over twenty years transforms Gavin Brown’s Enterprise into a bizarre
religious and mythical forest with reductive tree-like pedestals
raising their objects far above eye level. First Mark upends the
conventions of viewing art with works placed high and low, reflecting the artist’s interest in how found objects fuction outside
their usual context. Nadin sourced many of his materials locally on
his Catskills farm–turning beeswax, chicken eggs, and pollen into
sacred scuplture and painting. Especially powerful are the honey, wax
and paint canvases which remind of David Hammons’ use of Kool-aid for
his abstract paintings. Both artists transform mundane materials with
a combination of the accidental and intentional. Photo and text Juliana Balestin