NATHANIEL GALKA

Birdie’s perch... detail 1

My work is always in an ebb and flow process, with never a notion of a beginning or end. I never know what is going to be the next piece… but when it begins to happen and it feels right, I let it’s new found identity lead me. I do not control my art, my art directs me where it wants to go and what it wants to become.The beginning or foundation of a new piece, stems from careless arbitrary mark making. As the piece develops, my compulsion is to find or develop an environment, making it suitable for a perceived habitat that is not recognized or familiar at first glance. My art is very much like nature… It can change on a dime.

In 1994, my career as an artist started at Columbus College of Art and Design, in Columbus Ohio. There I received my BFA in Painting with a strong focus in their conceptual studies. After graduating from undergrad, I then went immediately and pursued my advance education at Northwestern University in Chicago, Il. There I received my MFA in 2001. I then stayed in Chicago until 2005, where I was part of a young and thriving group of new and up and coming new artists. I participated in many alternative showings and several traditional gallery shows… both being solo and group shows. Since leaving Chicago in 2005 for new experiences, I have traveled back and forth and lived in Los Angeles, Asheville and Knoxville. In all these travels, the one thing I continue to do is paint, draw and create. Within the act of creating, telling a good story is what I am about… I just do it through paint and the pen…

CLOUD BOUNCING

“This show is greatly based on the the effects of playful day dreaming in the state of twilight.  While viewing each painting from this series of cloud landscapes, one will realize these paintings are an escape of what is “real” and what is “not real”. As with all nature, there is no right or wrong emotion or elements when we are entranced in a state of twilight. I use the term twilight as a departure of a “true” reality, it is a welcomed state of complete bliss and comfort. So in an endeavor to provide an arena of visual pleasure to escape to, I am trying to bring forth an element of playfulness, pure comfort and fantasy.  These artworks operate as an “amusement park” for the heart, mind and soul.

The name Cloud Bouncing… says it all! Happiness, frivolity, excitement, joy and pleasure etc…. embracing the mind of a child that still excites in us ALL.  The sublime aspect of a day dream is that EVERYTHING in a daydream is what it seems to be yet at the same time it is not.  Knowing this, I create a strikingly visual yet tangible daydream full of fanciful creatures to live side by side and give them the freedom to explore and play along with the viewer.  These creatures that play and flirt in my paintings are of a real nature, they are the characters in the arena of fun, they are the entertainment.

The idea of Cloud Bouncing is a state of internal bliss and freeness that exists in oneʼs day dreaming.  Imagine the idea, softly floating from one dream to the the next, this is how the viewer drifts in and out of the paintings in the show Cloud Bouncing… my paintings are a place for playtime and laughter. The color is heightened just as the state of mind is…. so it will make one smile and feel free. The creatures are there to make one giggle. It is a fairytale of pleasure for the eyes and soul. It is candy. My paintings are a place to leave yourself behind and learn to smile again….”

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