Plane Space :: Jenene Nagy
In February Tilt Gallery + Project Space co-director, Jenene Nagy, will be the next featured artist in the Portland Art Museum’s APEX series curated by Jennifer Gately. A very pleasant surprise to get in my e-box and exciting to be Nagy’s first-ever solo museum exhibition. This proves that the museum can be a bit dangerous and risky, and is recognizing a rather young artist among us who has made a clear impact in the community. Presenting someone who hybrids media in a way that confronts the flat architectural/monotone plane. Justice done for what’s happening right here and now here in Portland. With a handful of younger artists using the motif of playful angles, as props, as staging, raw, with cheap materials, Nagy always offers something that pops in its various painting and sculptural references. And once she shifted to larger scale her work became something both contentious and on the playing field within the scale of the body. Many viewers have to contend with things larger than themselves. Some with awe, and some within the pluralism of basic physics.
When I asked her about being tapped for this series she said “Extremely flattered. It was a pretty unbelievable phone call to get. Every time I went to the APEX I always thought it begged for installation. I never dreamed of being included in such a prestigious program. Well, not this early in my career at least. I am so appreciative of Jennifer and the museum for supporting this kind of work and giving me such an awesome opportunity.” She further went on to define what she’s doing in the studio these days as “Paintings that behave like sculpture.”
From the release: “For the last year, Nagy has questioned the need to invent idealized spaces with site-specific installations that blur the boundaries between built and natural environments. Composed with standard construction materials such as drywall, candy-colored latex house paint, wood two-by-fours, and shelf paper, Nagy’s work references manufactured and organic worlds. Residing somewhere between painting and sculpture, her imaginative landscapes flow from gallery walls and fracture into space. “With their clear architectural roots and abstracted organic gestures, Nagy’s playful, yet subversive, faceted installations ask viewers to question their perception of interior and exterior worlds,” said Jennifer A. Gately, Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Curator of Northwest Art.”
Nagy recently offered an open studio visit to the public, and also has just this semester taken on the role of overseeing a few galleries at PSU where she plans to show a handful of artists from her own gallery roster. Next year is a big year for Jenene as she also pursues a duo exhibition with colleague and gallerymate Stephanie Robison at the Art Gym. An artist to watch.