Chris Nau
Chris Nau
Workspace Program Resident 2009
I aim for the tensions between two states of being as my subject matter. In the Dieu Donné pieces, this meant constructing forms that balanced between object and illusion; construction and destruction and control vs. chaos. I chose another series of my work – large-scale drawings that I cut into walls – that dealt with these concepts as a starting point for my Workspace Residency.
The Workspace pieces began as drawings made out of strips of aluminum foil that were laid edgewise on a screen. Pulp was poured over them and into the shapes and spaces within the foil matrix. When the water was pressed out of the pulp, the aluminum foil was crushed within. The crushed foil was torn out, leaving cuts and scars in the damp, white paper. Large quantities of black pulp were then injected into and behind these cuts and this bulging drawing was run through the hydraulic press again. My collaborator Paul Wong and I adjusted pigments, pulps, foil, water, felt and foam layers and pressure, but we never knew exactly what would happen during the final run through the press. Black water gushed out, the felt layers holding the paper bubbled and wrinkled, and chunks of the drawings shifted. The effects were unpredictable and often extraordinary.
The finished pieces that you see are final states of this tug of war between opposites. I see them as more than images of abstract forms. They are portraits of transformation.
— Chris Nau, 2010
In the Studio
About the Artist
Chris Nau received a Master of Fine Arts from Massachusetts College of Art and Design and a BFA from the University of Washington. He has recently exhibited at The Drawing Center in New York, G.A.S. Station in Berlin, The Bernard Toale and OH+T galleries in Boston and the Dam Stuhltrager Gallery in Brooklyn. Upcoming shows include the Peter Miller Gallery and The Suburban project space in Chicago as well as the Tegnerforbundet Galleri in Oslo, Norway. Nau is also a 2010 recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant.
For more information, please visit their website: https://www.chrisnau.com