Nicholas Nyland; New Work 2019
January 2019 at Linda Hodges Gallery, Seattle, WA
These paintings and ceramic sculpture occupy the margins where sculpture, painting, design and craft overlap. Ornament and surface design become the subjects of works that recall early Modern experiments with color and form and the effects of light through stained glass. This recent work shows a dialogue among media where forms are translated from sculpture into painting and vice-versa.
An example of this play with traditional forms or motifs from craft and decorative traditions is the wall mounted ceramic Platter (D.G) which recalls the display of ceremonial service ware while doing double duty as a low-relief painting. "D.G." in the title is for Duncan Grant, the painter and member of the Bloomsbury Group who also designed textiles, ceramics and theater sets, a reference to the artist’s interest in that group’s collective desire to merge art and life and surround themselves with a new aesthetic sensibility.
I’m particularly interested in reworking antique motifs from marginalized practices, such as early American decorative arts or stained glass design. Ceramics has become important to my practice because it offers a medium that expresses an immediacy of touch analogous to the marks in painting and drawing while also connecting to a long historical tradition. The inherent tension between a form and its surface design means that the work can operate as a sculpture on one hand and a painting on the other. These works were created during or based upon experiences at residencies at the Vermont Studio Center (2017); Ash St Project, Portland (2018); and Chateau Orquevaux, France (2018).