Patrick Nickell
Installation view. 2011
Installation view. 2011
Wrestling Club. (ochre). 2010
Acrylic, plaster, metal armature, orange painted wood table
32 x 32 x 22”, table 32 ¼ x 24 x 30”
PN11 01
Seeker. (yellow). 2010
Acrylic, plaster, metal armature, yellow painted wood table
29 ¼ x 25 ½ x 27”, table 32 ¼ x 27 1/8 x 27 1/8”
PN11 02
Roaring. (white). 2010
Acrylic, plaster, metal armature, black & green painted wood table.
31 ½ x 35 x 30”, table 32 ½ x 32 ¼ x 36”
PN11 03
Sound Mind Sound Body. (pink). 2010
Acrylic, plaster, metal armature, pink painted wood table
31 x 32 x 40”, table 32 3/8 x 29 1/8 x 27 ¼”
PN11 04
Acrobats on the Pier. (green). 2010.
Acrylic, plaster, metal armature, aqua painted wood table
31 ¼ x 35 x 21”, table 32 3/8 x 27 x 26 1/8”
PN11 05
Installation view. 2011
Pismo Beach. (pink/blue). 2010.
Acrylic, plaster, metal armature, chartreuse painted wood table.
30 7/8 x 36 x 34”, table 32 3/8 x 35 1/8 x 25”
PN11 06
Gazing. (blue). 2010.
Acrylic, plaster, metal armature, light blue painted wood table.
26 ½ x 35 x 21”, table 32 3/8 x 27 ½ x 22 ½”
PN11 07
Bony. (gray). 2010.
Acrylic, plaster, metal armature, unpainted wood table.
30 ¾ x 25 x 30”, table, 32 3/8 x 27 ¼ x 21”
PN11 08
Circus Clown Fire Brigade. (orange). 2010.
Acrylic, plaster, metal armature, light blue painted wood table .
37 x 26 ¼ x 22 ½”, table 32 ¼ x 27 ½ x 26 ½”
PN11 09
Forest Through Trees. ( black + green ). 2010.
Acrylic, plaster, metal armature, unpainted wood table
28 ¼ x 34 ½ x 26”, table 32 ¼ x 33 x 25”
PN11 10
Patrick Nickell returns to Rosamund Felsen Gallery for an exhibition of new sculptural work, The Lending Library Lends a Hand. In his last exhibition Nickell created large homespun abstract forms that jutted out into space for a rather humorous interaction with shape and line. This new body of work involves a more careful, more intuitive consideration of mass and color, focusing on the gestural and corporeal aspects of form and interactivity. If the previous works conjured historical elements of drawing or even cartooning, this new work concentrates on bodily interfacing and evocative coloring. Nickell has formulated pieces that weave in, on, over and around themselves, and has overlaid them with refined, intensely colored surfaces, often confounding the viewer with a displacement of mass. The viewer is struck by the moments when these initially odd, rangy shapes begin to look like bodies, twisting and dancing before us, and simultaneously appear to be heavily grounded, weighty masses, anchored to their plinths. While maintaining Nickell's customary playfulness, these works, not shying from abstraction, nonetheless point to traditional – often recognizable – forms, and to a practice of sculpture grounded in the idea of both looking back and moving forward. Memory, nostalgia and familiarity are met with the unknown, the unpredictable and the unrecognizable.