Biography
Joshua Nathanson’s large-scale paintings draw from diverse visual sources to bridge digital, real-world and psychological realms. While remaining firmly rooted in the tradition of painting, he conjures an aesthetic that is attuned to a contemporary mode of seeing. Nathanson uses handmade oil sticks and paint to realise his work, producing vivid palettes, lush compositions and layered surfaces whose material origins are difficult to ascertain. His cast of characters and narratives are hyper-pastoral and often verge on the psychedelic. A sentiment of wistfulness and mania creeps through his work and speaks to the promise and anxiety of our converging synthetic and natural realities.
Nathanson’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Yuz Museum, Shanghai; Downs and Ross, New York; Kaikai Kiki Gallery, Tokyo; Luce Gallery, Turin, Italy; and Various Small Fires, Los Angeles and Seoul. His work has also been shown in recent group exhibitions at Van Doren Waxter, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Yokohama Museum, Japan; ARNDT, Gillman Barracks, Singapore; and 356 S. Mission, Los Angeles.
Nathanson’s work is part of the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; and Yuz Museum, Shanghai.
He received a BFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York (2000), and an MFA from the ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena, US (2006). Born in 1976 in Washington, DC, he currently lives and works in Los Angeles.
SAF participation:
Art in the Age of Anxiety (2020)