Statement
Slipping in and out of the familiar through abstract mark making, I draw parallels between nature and human nature within my paintings. My shapes coalesce into landscape and figure, eventually dissipating into abstract impressions. This continuum transcends a place of logical thought and points to the unnameable, to the mystery beyond the thinking mind.
I do not plan my paintings because I sense them noetically. I discern the works passively as deja vu like memories. When visual ideas reveal themselves, they are not used as representations but as communication. What happens on the canvas never matches what I imagine. Discovering a painting feels like I’m blind and being led by a river — I can discern the river in so many ways, but I can’t see the river. I intuitively perceive the painting the whole time, but I only see the painting once it’s complete.
Bio
Michael Nauert was born in 1988 in Southern California, where he lives and works both in his studio and nature. He creates abstract oil paintings on canvas and carved wood based on nature, resonance, and mind-space. In 2014, he was part of a group show at the Royal Academy of Arts in London and was a finalist for Murakami’s Kaikai Kiki co. show in Japan. Awarded with scholarships and grants to study at The School of the Art Institute, he received a BFA in 2017. He also studied at Ox-Bow School of Art in 2015 and 2017. In 2019, he exhibited at the Torrance Art Museum’s show, Run Straight Through, exploring concepts of nature-space and paint as figure. He has been featured in many publications including New American Paintings (Issue 125), Art Maze Magazine, Friend of the Artist Magazine, and Floorr Magazine. Since 2014, he has participated in many group and duo exhibitions throughout the United States. Exhibited in LA at Simard Bilodeau Contemporary, 2023 brought Walking in My Own Steps, Nauert’s first solo show. He currently is in an art residency at the Center for Arts Museum in Escondido, CA, where Nauert is showing his first museum solo show, Biophilia California. He focuses on deepening his investigation into the nested worlds between nature and humankind. He explores using discarded and repurposed paint as “mosaic” — paint scraps from past paintings now integrating his entire art history into one painting. They become atoms in his world building.
