Howard Nathenson: Marks and Layers

Artist Statement:
My series of abstract paintings called Marks and Layers are a culmination of my preoccupation with emotive color and painted surfaces. I am technically an unrepentant abstract expressionist, with an abiding interest in landscape and nature painting of all kinds. I do not accept that abstraction is a thing in itself and is basically non-objective. I believe that all marks, all colors and shapes on a surface, flat or three dimensional, produce an emotional reaction from the viewer. Painted or embossed marks may sometimes seem like the letters of a written language. Several of the paintings in this exhibit consist of waves or translucent layers of color stained into the canvas. The viewer’s 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.

About the Artist
Howard Nathenson was born in Denver, Colorado and received a BFA in painting from the University of Denver and an MFA in painting from the University of California, Berkeley. He has taught drawing, painting, and photography at the University of California, Berkeley; California State College, Los Angeles; William Paterson University, Paterson, New Jersey; and Keane College, Newark, New Jersey as well as the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey in Summit. Nathenson specializes in painting, drawing, and photography. His imagery ranges from symbolic photographic realism and semi abstract compositions, to compositions that celebrate the subtle processes and formal constraints of the compositions themselves. This includes illusionism contrasted with texture, black and white combined or contrasted with color, combinations of materials, and suggested imaginary narratives.

Nathenson has displayed his work in numerous locations around the United States, including at exhibitions in California, New York City, and New Jersey. Nathenson was awarded a New Jersey State Fellowship for the Arts, in photography, and served on the Fellowship’s selection committee the following year. His work is in the collection of the Neuberger Museum, The Brodsky Museum at SUNY, The Bergen Museum, The University of Denver and many other private and public collections.