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Tinsquo's curatorial project, Adjacent To Life, presents Nathan Stapley’s newest collection of gouache paintings.
Venturing far from his signature subject of East Village streetscapes, this year found the artist on a protracted cross-country working road trip, painting en plein air in wide open expanses. With sly homages to earlier, iconic landscape painters, Stapley advances the twin narratives of his concerns: the evocative depiction of light and the refinement of craft.
The painter states:
“When Covid hit in March my wife and I were lucky enough to have a friend who had a friend with an empty house in Maine who offered it to us for as long as we needed. On March 16th - the day that Los Angeles announced they were shutting down - we packed a bunch of stuff and drove up to Maine. We stayed for two and a half months until May 4th. My wife and I had started the process of moving to Brooklyn back in November but were given a 3-6 month time frame for when the place would be ready. At this same time our lease was expiring at our apartment of 12 years on 8th St. and Avenue D here in the east village. Instead of re-signing a lease and having to break it in a few months, we decided to drive to California. Working along the way, we would stay for the summer and drive back when our place was ready. We made it back to New York on September 6th. These paintings, inspired by our trip, are painted from on-location studies, sketches, and memories.”
The exhibit is on view through January 8 at the Adjacent to Life gallery housed in Ninth Street Espresso (341 E. 10th Street at Ave B, New York City).