Howard Nathenson: Coming Back Around

Howard Nathenson, Aqua Marks, 2020, Acrylic on canvas, 38 x 60 inches

Artist’s Statement:

Coming Back Around features Nathenson’s series of abstract paintings entitled “Marks and Layers”. The series culminates his preoccupation with emotive color and painted surfaces. He identifies as an unrepentant abstract expressionist with an abiding interest in landscape painting of all kinds. He rejects the idea that abstraction is non-objective and believes that all marks, colors, and shapes on a surface, flat or three-dimensional, produce an emotional reaction from the viewer. That reaction may be a simple feeling, or refer to something the viewer may have seen in nature or their surroundings. The reaction may also be largely spiritual.

Artist’s Bio
Artist Howard Nathenson has exhibited his artwork at venues across the United States, including Holly Solomon Gallery, Artist Space, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City; and The Morris Museum in Morristown, New Jersey. He was awarded a New Jersey State Fellowship for the Arts in Photography in 1993 and served on the fellowship’s selection committee the following year.

After graduating from the University of California, Berkeley with an MFA in painting, Nathenson worked as an art instructor and professor. He taught drawing, composition, and painting at UC Berkeley and California State College, Los Angeles. He has also taught drawing, 2-D design, composition, and photography at William Paterson University, and art history at Kean University. While working as an exhibition preparator at the Whitney Museum, he began to teach drawing, painting, and photography workshops at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, where he remained as a longtime instructor.