What is my work about?
I am interested in tuning awareness so that the experience of perceiving and the object that is perceived align, to such a degree that you as the perceiver exit out of yourself and into it, and it simultaneously enters back into you; a criss-crossing of being here and there simultaneously. Another way to describe this switching places while remaining still is, the subject becomes the object, the hunter becomes the hunted-it’s an edgeless (perhaps empathic or ultimately consuming) interface with an “other.” For this reason I am very involved in surfaces and borders in painting, and continue working on images that tend to be either an icon or a field (to encompass the full contradiction of the pursuit). As Oscar Wilde once aptly said, with seditious wisdom, “It is only superficial people who do not judge by appearances. The mystery of the world is the visible not the invisible.”
Artist Statement
I am interested in tuning awareness so that the experience of perceiving and the object that is perceived align, to such a degree that you as the perceiver exit out of yourself and into it, and it simultaneously enters back into you; a criss-crossing of being here and there simultaneously. Another way to describe this switching places while remaining still is, the subject becomes the object, the hunter becomes the hunted—it’s an edgeless (perhaps empathic or ultimately consuming) interface with an “other.” For this reason I am very involved in surfaces and borders in painting, and continue working on images that tend to be either an icon or a field (to encompass the full contradiction of the pursuit). As Oscar Wilde once aptly said, with seditious wisdom, “It is only superficial people who do not judge by appearances. The mystery of the world is the visible not the invisible.”
Within the Doubleu series, matte and oily oil paint are paired into closed forms that open space with their reflective surfaces and tenuously squeezed outer edges. The room is pulled in, its walls and all of their contents implicated as part of the thickly painted field. A painting’s image is taken in part from word play (w; double u; double you; you you; u u; doubleu) and formed into shapes that imply multiple, open-ended associations. Surfaces are sensual. The hope is that the painting functions on the level of image, experience, and language. Art historical representations of time (gathered from extensive research in books, museums, and the Internet) inform—though only in a slanted way—a painting’s rhythm. The subtle, nocturnal colors on the other hand, dissolve and subvert that rhythm, to undermine the dominant.
-14 August 2014
CV
Education
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, MFA, 2007
U.S. Fulbright Fellowship in Painting, India, 2004-2005
Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD, BFA, 2004
Selected solo exhibitions
2013
Violets Violence Silence, Gallery Diet, Miami, FL
2012
Book of Hours, 1:1, New York, NY
Selected group exhibitions
2014
Berthold Pott CHAPLINI Gallery, Cologne, Germany (forthcoming)
Nathlie Provosty & Ann Pibal, Halsey Mckay, East Hampton, NY
Simplest Means, Jeff Bailey Gallery, New York, NY
2013
Correspondences: Ad Reinhardt at 100, TEMP Gallery, New York, NY
Mia Goyette, Siobhan Liddell, Jo Nigoghossian, Nathlie Provosty, Greene Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA
Paint On, Paint Off, Halsey Mckay Gallery, East Hampton, NY
Banter, Gallery Diet, curated by James Cope, Miami, FL
2012
Prophetic Diagrams, George and Jorgen, London, UK
Inside Out 2012, Inside Out Museum, Beijing, China
Brucennial, 159 Bleeker Street, New York, NY
2011
Geometric Days, Exit Art, New York, NY
What Tornado?, Microscope Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Writings, lectures & collaborations
Provosty, Nathlie; Kelly, Robert. “The Color Mill.” Spuyten Duyvil, New York; September 2014. (image/poetry book)
Juror, photography, Scholastics Award for High School students, 2014.
Provosty, Nathlie. “What’s more real, a dead tree or a drawing of a dead tree? Michael Berryhill with Nathlie Provosty.” The Brooklyn Rail. May 2014, pg. 70-72.
Provosty, Nathlie. “In Conversation: G.T. Pellizzi with Nathlie Provosty,” The Brooklyn Rail. February 2014, pg. 2-5.
Dessner, Bryce: composer. The Kronos Quartet: Aheym. Album Artwork. ANTI- record label; released November 5, 2013.
Provosty, Nathlie. “In Conversation: Ron Gorchov with Nathlie Provosty,” The Brooklyn Rail. October 2013. [online]
New York Studio School lecture, with Nicole Wittenberg. October 9, 2012.Columbia University MFA lecture. October 5, 2012.Columbia University BFA visiting artist/lecture. February 20, 2012.
Grants and awards
American Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Prize, 2012
Rosenthal Family Foundation Award, 2012
Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation, Space Program, 2009-10
U.S. Fulbright Fellowship in Painting, India, 2004-05
Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant, Montreal, Canada, 2003 and 2001
Selected bibliography
diSONARE: arte/ficción/ensayo 03 (September 2014); Mexico City. [front/back cover ill.]
Kabat, Jennifer. “Simplest Means.” Frieze No. 162 (April 2014): 163.
Corwin, William. “Come Together: Surviving Sandy, Year One.” Frieze No. 162 (April 2014): 162-163.
Earnest, Jarrett. “ ‘Drag’ & ‘Abstraction’. “ SFAQ (16 December 2013): [online]
Bacon, Alex. “Nathlie Provosty’s New Paintings.” Miami Rail (Fall 2013): 38-41 [ill.]
Bui, Phong; Provosty, Nathlie. “Here and There and In-Between.” Annual Magazine 6 (October 2013): 240-249 [ill.]
Truax, Stephen. “Come Together: Surviving Sandy.” ArtPulse.com (October 2013): [online]
Rossetti, Chloë. “Nathlie Provosty.” Artforum.com (19 November 2012): [online]