Nathan Hylden is an American abstract painter admired for his ability to question the very essence of painting in a unique body of work. He chooses to utilize diverse media, such as aluminum, pearlescent paint and spray paints and each of his paintings becomes a meaningful frame within the larger sequence. Hylden’s main goal is to depict the complex relationships between absence and presence, emptiness and meaning, cause and effect. The aesthetics behind Hylden’s work is clearly contemporary and unpredictable in its uniqueness.
Hylden has earned his MFA from Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, in 2006, and his BFA from Minnesota State University, in 2001. He was also a guest student at the Stadelschule in Frankfurt, in 2005. He developed his personal style of working in series, creating a number of coherent, interconnected works. Another typical quality of Hylden’s works are the artist’s broad gestures with paint, which end up overlapping each other and affecting multiple canvases. In this way, the artist creates coherent groups of work, which are intrinsically linked due to their shared materials and common aesthetics.
Hylden’s paintings are based on rigorous conceptual processes – the artist investigates the philosophical concepts and relationships between cause and effect, emptiness and meaning. He has developed quite elaborate technical processes – for example, he paints his canvases with holographic gold, arranges them on the floor and sprays the overlapping sections of the canvases yellow, before finally stenciling black stripes. This interesting process results in a series of interconnected works, since they are conceived in the same way, at the same time. In another series of paintings, Hylden uses a different yet equally unique approach – he screen-prints aluminum plates with an image of a blank canvas. There’s no better symbol of emptiness than an empty canvas and through this process the artist wants to reveal his idea that the materials used in painting, even empty canvases, are meaningful and carry a certain aesthetical value.
Hylden became well-known and appreciated for his trademark process of taking the pre-condition of the canvas as the conceptual starting point for his puzzling pieces. His uniquely abstract, process-oriented artworks that investigate the puzzling dualities of existence such as blankness and figuration, singularity and plurality, the manual and the mechanical, have won a lot of attention in both American and international art scenes. He has exhibited widely, including solo exhibitions at Koenig Galerie in Berlin, Richard Telles Fine Art in Los Angeles, Misako & Rosen in Tokyo and Art Concept in Paris.
Featured image: Nathan Hylden – Untitled (detail), 2015
All images via artsy.net
Year | Exhibition Title | Gallery/Museum | Solo/Group |
---|---|---|---|
2015 | Material | Konig Galerie, Berlin | Group |
2015 | Painting the Blue Sky | Stefan Lundgren Gallery, Mallorca | Group |
2014 | More Over | Art: Concept, Paris | Solo |
2014 | FIAC | Stand Art: Concept, Paris | Group |
2014 | Beware Wet Paint | Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin | Group |
2014 | Love Story, Die Sammlung Anne und Wolfgang Titze, 21er Haus | Belvedere | Group |
2014 | Chat Jet (Part 2) - Sculpture in reflection | Künstlerhaus, KM, Burgring, Autriche | Group |
2014 | Plus un geste | Galerie Michel Journiac, Paris | Group |
2014 | Goes On | Konig Galerie, Berlin | Solo |
2013 | Meanwhile | Johann König, Berlin | Solo |
2013 | Meanwhile | Hamburger Kunstverein , Hamberg | Solo |
2013 | The Floating Admiral | Palais de Tokyo, Paris | Group |
2013 | Ambient | Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York | Group |
2013 | L’Origine des choses | La CENTRALE for Contemporary Art, Bruxelles | Group |
2013 | Why Not Live For Art II | Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Tokyo | Group |
2012 | Seuls quelques fragments de nous | Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris | Group |
2012 | Lost in LA – an art exhibition & experience | Municipal Art Gallery, Barnsdall Art Park, L.A | Group |
2012 | I think and that is all I am | Thomas Duncan Gallery, L.A | Group |
2012 | Il Regalo | Overduin and Kite, L.A | Group |
2012 | Stand Art: Concept | Art Basel, Bâle | Group |
2012 | Minimal Myth | Museum Boijmans, Rotterdam | Group |
2011 | Nathan Hylden | Richard Telles Fine Art,Los Angeles | Solo |
2011 | Unknown | Volker Bradtke,Dusseldorf | Group |
2010 | Once I Get Started | Art:Concept, Paris | Solo |
2010 | Getting There, In Various Order | Johann Konig, Berlin | Solo |
2010 | Nathan Hylden | MISAKO & ROSEN, Tokyo | Solo |
2010 | Le Faux Miroir | Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels | Group |
2010 | What Where | Sutton Lane, London + Sutton Lane, Paris | Group |
2010 | Out of Focus | Galeria Pelairus, Mallora, Spain | Group |
2010 | Bagna cauda | Art:Concept, Paris | Group |
2010 | California Dreamin | Arte Portugal 10, Portugal | Group |
2009 | Done And | Richard Telles Fine Art, Los Angeles | Solo |
2009 | Cave Painting Installment No.2 | Gresham's Ghost, New York | Group |
2009 | Affinities | Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York | Group |
2009 | The Secret Life of Objects | Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis | Group |
2009 | Round Up | Richard Telles Fine Art, Los Angeles | Group |
2009 | It's you. Not me | Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York | Group |
2009 | Cave Painting | PSM Gallery, Berlin | Group |
2009 | Bulletinboard Blvd | Pro Choice, Vienna, Austria | Group |
2008 | Still Now Again | Johann Koenig, Berlin | Solo |
2008 | Le Retour | Nice & Fit Gallery, Berlin | Group |
2008 | One Morning I Woke Up Very Early | Office Baroque Gallery, Belgium | Group |
2008 | Zuordnungsprobleme | Johann Konig, Berlin | Group |
2008 | Group Show | Galerie Art:Concept, Paris | Group |
2008 | Amy Granat, Nathan Hylden, Meredyth Sparks | Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago | Group |
2007 | Again and as if to Begin | Richard Telles Fine Art, Los Angeles | Solo |
2007 | Just Something Else | ArtArt Concept, Paris | Solo |
2007 | Starting to an End | Misako & Rosen, Tokyo | Solo |
2007 | L.A. Desire, Part l | Galerie Dennis Kimmerich, Dsseldorf | Group |
2007 | Material Photographs | Shane Campbell Gallery, Oak Park, Illinois | Group |
2007 | Laying Bricks | Wallspace, New York | Group |
2007 | STUFF: International Contemporary Art from the Collection of Burt Aaron | Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Michigan | Group |
2007 | Degree Zero | Richard Telles Fine Art, Los Angeles | Group |
2007 | Where Was I, All About the Edges, Bag of Pockets | The Art of Semi-Autonomy, Los Angeles | Group |
2007 | Post Rose: Artists In and Out of the Hazard Park Complex | Galerie Christian Nagel, Berlin | Group |
2007 | Unknown | Grieder Contemporary, Zurich | Group |
2007 | Fit to Print | Gagosian Gallery, New York | Group |
2006 | Pacing | Marc Foxx, Los Angeles | Group |
2006 | The Swan Is Very Peaceful... | Richard Telles Fine Art, Los Angeles | Group |
2006 | Under Pressure | Art: Concept, Paris | Group |
2006 | Pose and Sculpture | Casey Kaplan Gallery, New York | Group |
2006 | Preview Exhibition | Misako & Rosen, Tokyo | Group |
2005 | Autonomy | Foxy Production, New York | Group |
2005 | Unknown | Gallery Nomadenoase, Hamburg | Group |