Press Release
For Art Los Angeles Contemporary, Nathan Mabry will premiere four new sculptures that investigate traditions of figuration and the visual language of minimalism.
The first body of work, is new a series of three wall-mounted sculptures, each comprised of a museological mounted bronze mask placed on a rectangular or square base. The heads are cast from altered and combined Mende Sowei-Sande helmet masks, worn exclusively by women. The bases reference the logic of late aluminum works of Donald Judd. Yet, where Judd would approach the mathematical form from a depersonalized perspective, Mabry uses it to create a human form – the painted aluminum pans mimicking the proportions of a figure in various states of repose.
Mabry will exhibit a unique work from the series titled “Amulet.” The substantial steel sculpture acts as an anthropomorphized minimal object, initially reminiscent of Tony Smith’s rigid geometric forms. Slowly, the piece reveals itself as a human hand– in this case– the shape of a shadow puppet dog. Simultaneously the work looks like a large abstract metal sculpture, an object from a distant culture, and a cartoonish dog riffing on the idiom “let sleeping dogs lie.”
Nathan Mabry received his BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and his MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles. His work has appeared in exhibitions at the Parrish Art Museum (South Hampton, NY); the Hammer Museum (Los Angeles, CA); the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (La Jolla, CA); the Las Vegas Art Museum (Las Vegas, NV); 176 / Zabludowicz Collection (London, UK) and The Rubell Family Collection, (Miami, FL). He has exhibited work at such galleries as Gladstone (New York, NY); Haunch of Venison (New York, NY); Cherry and Martin (Los Angeles, CA); LA Louver (Los Angeles, CA); Galleria Zero (Milan, Italy); and Praz-Delavellade (Paris, France). His work has been reviewed in Art + Auction, Art in America, Frieze, Modern Painters, Sculpture Journal, The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times.
(Cherry and Martin archive)
Philip Martin gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11am-6pm and by appointment. For further information and images please contact the gallery at +310-559-0100 or info@philipmartingallery.com.
Philip Martin Gallery
2712 S. La Cienega Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90034
+310-559-0100
info@philipmartingallery.com
