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Chris Nau
Jewett Art Gallery
Aug. 25 - Oct. 13, 2018
All of Chris Nau's paintings in this exhibition begin on long train rides. Landscapes dissolve in collaged flashes of nature and rural, suburban, and urban scenes when experienced through the window of a moving train. Buildings and vehicles, plants and animals, seen briefly and in unexpected combinations, provide the inspiration for Nau's sketches, which in turn act as the originating forms for his paintings.
The resulting images are suggestive of recognizable forms, but defy easy categorization. Nau observes reality from a fragmentary perspective in motion, and crystallizes his observations into abstract sketches. The process of translating these into the paintings involves a careful balance between that abstraction and a grounded sense of tactility and dimensionality. His deft manipulation of implied shadow, geometric form, and surface textures lends a kind of assumed reality to the subjects of his paintings. They seem to represent some actual object, even if the viewer cannot always immediately name the implied referent.
Train Brain was on view in the Jewett Art Gallery from August 25 - October 13, 2018.
Chris Nau lives and works in New York City. He studied zoology and painting at Oregon State University, earning a BFA in painting from the University of Washington, and an MFA in painting from the Massachusetts College of Art. His work has been exhibited at Galerie Kristine Hamann in Wismar, Germany; The Boston Center for the Arts; The Hunterdon Museum of New Jersey; The Tegnerforbundet center for drawing in Oslo, Norway; the Drawing Center in New York, NY; The Dam Stultrager Gallery (NYC and Berlin); and the G.A.S. Station Gallery in Berlin. He is a recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, as well as a Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant. In 2008 he was selected for a Dieu Donné workspace residency in papermaking projects and a Jordan Schnitzer Print Residency at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology in Otis, Oregon. At the time of this exhibition Nau is represented by Galerie Kristine Hamann in Wismar, Germany. In 2014 he joined the United Scenic Artists 829 New York local of the International Association of Theatrical Stage Employees union. When not working in his studio he paints scenery for television shows, movies, opera, and theatre.
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