(Image left: Nathan Skiles, “The Vanitas of Vineta B," 2009, corrugated plastic & foam rubber, 36" x 32" x 10"
Image right: Heather Sherman, "Suck It, Suburbia," 2009, oil on paper, 38" x 50")

NATHAN SKILES: Black Forest / White Lightning

HEATHER SHERMAN: Feral

OPENING RECEPTION: Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 from 6 to 8 pm

EXHIBITION: January 27 through February 20, 2010

SLOAN FINE ART
128 Rivington Street
(corner of Norfolk)
New York, NY 10002
212.477.1140
sloanfineart.com

Sloan Fine Art, in conjunction with Greene Contemporary, is pleased to present Black Forest / White Lightning by Nathan Skiles in the front gallery and Feral by Heather Sherman in the project room.

In Black Forest / White Lightning, Nathan Skiles presents a collection of densely adorned cuckoo clocks, ranging from the intricately elegant to the over-the-top outrageous, as a means to invigorate his method of associative image making and feed his interest in the incongruous. While the clocks lend themselves easily to observations on the convenient clichés and “rules” of time and space, specific (and repeated) themes within the works expand beyond immediate associations and evolve into musings on the self-consciousness and limits popularly ascribed to these rules. Specifically, in “Two Headed Boy Part 1” and the pair “The Vanitas of Vineta (A & B),” Skiles uses iconography such as the ouroborus, a wishbone, the Cottingley Fairies, George Washington’s wooden teeth and the Inverted Jenny Stamp to investigate how time, space, legend and chance influence our perceptions of identity, continuity, value and truth. And with his innovative use of foam rubber as his primary material, Skiles tricks the eye and obliterates the baggage of immediate recognition, further challenging his audience to look beyond the immediate and investigate the core issues presented in his work.

Nathan Skiles earned his BFA from Ringling School of Design and his MFA from Montclair State University. This is his second solo exhibition in New York.
Three years ago, Heather Sherman purchased a mysterious bag of Kodak slides (meticulously organized and labeled “Puppies,” “Vacation,” “Christmas,” etc.) from a thrift store in Florida. While buzzing and clicking through them in her 70’s era slide projector, the artist found her voyeuristic exploration of these people’s lives exposed connections to, and elements of, her own past. In a photograph of lawn chairs, she saw the New Year’s Eve spent drunk and alone, watching neighbors cheerfully light fireworks while quietly hating them. In a slide of two German Shepherds eating from a woman’s hand, she remembered the day she witnessed her mother being attacked by the family dog. And in their fenced-off New Jersey backyard, she envisioned the golf course she grew up on, and regularly vandalized - a bored, rich, gay teenager acting out in the suburbs of Orlando, Florida. In Feral, Sherman projects her psychology onto these strangers and their memories, using them as a vehicle to confront her own personal history. Some of the stories are fictional, some autobiographical, but all reinforce the need for connectedness and feelings of alienation so rampant in, and integral to, suburbia.

Heather Sherman earned her BFA at Ringling School of Design in Florida before fleeing to New York where she will complete her MFA at NYU this year.
Through his gallery Greene Contemporary, and now as an independent curator and consultant, Jonathan Greene strives to discover, encourage and present emerging and mid-career artists with a commitment and dedication to creating innovative work in a wide range of mediums. Both Nathan Skiles and Heather Sherman exhibited previously at Greene Contemporary. This is the first collaboration between Greene Contemporary and Sloan Fine Art.

Sloan Fine Art is located at 128 Rivington Street on the Lower East Side of New York City. Hours are Wednesday to Sunday, noon to 6, and by appointment.

For more info on me visit my official website
www.rickyday.net