Sep 24, 2016 to Jan 8, 2017
Jeff Nye: Recovery Rooms
About the Exhibition
Jeff Nye’s paintings are physical explorations of loss and memory. His work reflects upon the ways in which time and emotion distort our relationship to the built environment. The artwork featured in Recovery Rooms depicts abstracted elements of both domestic and institutional spaces, settings of particular significance to the artist. Architectural details, such as walls, windows and floorboards seemingly appear and disappear from these canvases, caught somewhere between the physical present and the remembered past. Amidst these interiors, leaves and vines can be seen to weave on top of and within these settings, at times indistinguishable from the spaces in which they grow.
The complex relationship that exists between the original impulse, the process of painting and the final image, is not always apparent in Nye’s work. Yet, it is often this very relationship — the series of decisions made by the artist before, during and after the creation of an artwork — which defines its raison d’être, and consequently its success as an artwork. As Jan Verwoert explains, “the essential quality that makes something what it is, is embedded in the structure or the composition of that thing…”1 For Verwoert a painting’s meaning is in a constant state of emergence from its physical being. Verwoert pushes this idea further by connecting the concept of emergence with that of emergency and proposes that the creative act is one which is born out of a moment of crisis. Consequently, when one finds oneself in a state of emergency, every decision, every brushstroke, comes as a response to moments of unpredictability. For Nye, each painting is “a complicated system of paint application”2 driven by the unpredictable, with every decision, every brushstroke, a response to moments of volatility and precariousness. Over the course of several months, the artist applies paint using drips, strokes and washes, resulting in a multiplicity of layers that challenge our perception of the artwork. Initially the spaces depicted may seem “logical,” but the longer they are viewed the more they shift and mutate, complicated by the various applications of paint one on top of the other.
While Nye’s work is grounded within an abstracted painterly discourse, the artist uses the painting process to key into an emotional response – the grief experienced following the loss of his daughter. Through these works, the artist invites us to witness his private struggle, one that has affected both his professional and personal life. While discussions surrounding childhood mortality are often silenced by social stigma, these paintings become a way of making sense of loss, or, as the artist explains “those life and death moments that throw us off balance, or send us spinning out of control altogether.”3 Nye confronts this confusion and chaos by playing with the background/foreground relationship of his paintings and by turning his canvas around and working from various directions simultaneously. Like scars accumulated upon the surface of the canvas, Nye uses the colour and texture of the oil paint to bring up memories of a specific time and place. When translating the original memory to the canvas, the artist experiences a back and forth between the studio and the location where the memory took place. Ultimately, it is not only the emergency that fuels Nye, but this act of recovery. Over time, the past becomes more distant and the painting takes on its own multiple pasts as layers are added.
The idea of parenthood as both the context and content of artistic practice is still relatively absent from contemporary artistic discourses. The reticence of artists to broach this subject might relate to what artist and curator Nathalie Loveless calls the “uncrossable divide” existing between the private and public spheres.4 By referencing the domestic realm and his experience as a father in his work, Nye confronts this status quo and fractures gender and professional stereotypes. This work also breaks the illusion of the artist as a solitary figure locked away in a studio separated from the emotional realities of life. In truth, Nye works from a modified studio in his suburban garage, a fact which is not lost on him while he creates his work. Suburbia can be seen as the perfect microcosm of the public/private dichotomy, where the identical outward façade shields the multitudes of realities (however fractured) experienced within.
[1] Jan Verwoert, “Emergence: On the painting of Tomma Abts,” in Tomma Abts, eds. Daniel Buchholz and Christopher Müller, trans. Hugh Rorrison (Cologne and London: Galerie Daniel Buchholz and greengrassi, 2005), 43. Accessed August 6, 2016.
[2] Jeff Nye, “Statements,” e-mail message to author, May 12, 2016.
[3] Jeff Nye, “Statement,” Photosynthesis Series 2014-2016, 2016. Accessed April 1, 2016.
[4] Natalie Loveless, New Maternalisms (Toronto, ON: FADO Performance Centre, 2012), 6. Accessed June 30, 2016.
View the exhibition brochure on ISSUU.
This project is part of right here|right now. Launched in 2014, this initiative aims to foster the work of contemporary artists in York Region by providing them with exhibition opportunities and ongoing professional development.
About the Artist
Jeff Nye is a Canadian artist, writer, teacher and curator based in Newmarket, ON. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from Concordia University, Montreal (1998) and a Master of Fine Arts Degree from the University of Regina (2007). Nye’s paintings and multi-media installations have been exhibited in galleries across the country including the Art Gallery of Regina, 5th Parallel Gallery and the Aurora Cultural Centre. Nye has received several distinctions and awards for his work, including grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. His work is in the permanent collections of the Saskatchewan Arts Board and the University of Regina.
