Nathan Paul Rice + Ellen Robinette: MODULATIONS

Modulations is an exhibition of new and collaborative works by artists Nathan Paul Rice and Ellen Robinette. Both Rice and Robinette capture and remind us of the fun and magic that can happen in the practice of mark making and not being too precious about how the hand’s expression takes shape. Yet, in a time when it seems most world building is created and experienced for the screen, these pages with their bodily textures feel just that, precious.

New works by Nathan Paul Rice explore the tension between play and peril. In play we navigate structures, explore risk, find and make our own connections, and through this process also discover the perils of the physical world. In Rice’s world, forms obscured by black clouds reveal just hints of abstracted bodies living in a physical plane filled with vibrating patterns and color pops. He enlists color and pattern in both his paintings and sculptures to consider the effect of tension between the public and private spheres on our bodies and minds. 

Robinette’s universe is full of space and breath. The eye roams along ombre lines and rests in flowered fields of pattern, enters and explores shadowed landscapes and arcades. This current series of works, which the artist loosely calls Merge Visible, examines collaging past work with current in an attempt to mirror how memory is experienced–it’s layers, cyclical patterns and defiance of time. Past photos of Ellen’s own memories traveling and exploring abandoned spaces are softened and hazy through the photocopy transfer process, both content and technique employing nostalgia. She uses a language of pictorial abstractions for non-verbal storytelling, and is interested in how when a sequence or series of imagery is put together it begins to form a narrative.

Rice and Robinette’s world collide in a collaborative mural, as well as a series of sculptures where Ellen’s pictorial language combines with Nathan’s wooden forms.