Exhibition Feature - SLIPKNOT LOOPHOLE by Amy Nathan at CULT Aimee Friberg

CULT Aimee Friberg Exhibitions in San Francisco is pleased to present Slipknot Loophole, a solo exhibition of bas reliefs, drawings, paintings and mixed media sculptures by Bay Area artist Amy Nathan. Nathan’s second solo exhibition at CULT, Slipknot Loophole will be on view through June 29, 2022.

Power Pose I, 2021 - Flashe vinyl paint, colored pencil, and paper on panel - 40 x 22 inches

Power Pose II, 2022 - Flashe vinyl paint, colored pencil, and paper on panel - 40 x 22 inches

GALLERY STATEMENT - Slipknot Loophole is a solo exhibition of bas reliefs, drawings, paintings and mixed media sculptures by Bay Area artist Amy Nathan, on view at CULT Aimee Friberg. The works featured engage the mechanisms women use to hold themselves together and find that allowing release is an essential part of those systems. Ranging in scale from jewelry to architecture, Nathan’s work continues her material experimentation and her acute study of the distance between image and embodiment.

Slipknot Loophole extends Nathan’s engagement with the clothing and tools that are meant to double, reshape and camouflage the body. Eclectic in form and playful in style, Nathan’s works are culled from sources both ancient and contemporary. Interested in depictions of power as diffuse as Athena, J-Lo, Britney Spears and Medusa, Nathan re-frames these icons that transcend time and origin.

Slipknot Loophole’s exploration of the body is echoed in the materials that recur throughout the show, like figs (both natural and cast) representative of sensuality and fishing wire, which connects the work to the mythological metamorphosis of the sea. The tied fishing line, as well as the looping knots in pieces like Slipknot, reference how garments like the corset enact control over women’s bodies, altering the way their bodies move or take a breath.

The J Lo Effect, 2021 - Pigmented hydrocal, pigmented resin, acrylic, clay - 20 x 12.25 x 2 inches

Slipknot, 2022 - Acrylic and flashe vinyl paint on wood, pigmented cast latex - 46 x 17.5 x 2 inches

Corset Grid I (Tower), 2021 - Ink and colored pencil on paper - 50 x 38 inches

Corner piece (Not Titled Yet) (Side View), 2022 - Acrylic, flashe vinyl paint, and copper leaf on wood - 65 x 14 x 14.5 inches

Thoughts on Slipknot Loophole by Amy Nathan:

“My studio process of passing an image through states of being (photograph to drawing, to sculpture, to painting) furthers the distance from the original but leaves the physical trace of my hand. I’m interested in how close the casting process feels to photography — I make cast tablets (like printed photographs) from a single clay slab (the “negative”). In several sculptures, an image is cast onto itself multiple times and in different materials, some are opaque layers and some transparent. There is a search for the vestige’s origin that I’m interested in — that archaeological line we follow, hoping to find answers to write the history, to make the myth.”

Athena Wears Medusa, 2020 - Colored pencil and flashe vinyl paint on paper - 12.5 x 10 inches

Athena Spread, 2022 - Hydrocal, pigmented resin, clay, acrylic - 1 x 21 x 14 inches

Athena from Florence, 2021 - Colored pencil and flashe vinyl paint on paper - 13 x 9 inches

Mars Statuette, 2021 - Colored pencil and fl ashe vinyl paint on paper mounted on panel - 18 x 12 inches

Mars from Todi, 2021 - Colored pencil and flashe vinyl paint on paper - 13.5 x 11 inches

Five Figs, 2022 - Ink and color pencil on paper - 10 x 8.25 inches

Verso Verso, 2021 - Pigmented tuff stone, fiberglass, marble, pyrite - 80 x 14 x 2 inches

Slipknot Loophole will be on view through June 29, 2022. CULT is open by appointment.

Amy Nathan (b. 1973, Madison, Wisconsin) is an artist working in sculpture, painting and installation; her practice asks questions about how meaning can be expressed through visual languages. Nathan's work is guided by ideas such as the gendered nature of politics and power, classical mythology and contemporary literature and the body’s visceral reaction to its environment. Her work has been exhibited at CULT Aimee Friberg Exhibitions, the Headlands Center for the Arts, /room/, AORA London, Traywick Contemporary, Facebook and the International Sculpture Center. Her work has appeared in Artforum, Art Maze Magazine, New American Paintings and Sculpture Magazine and featured with Juxtapoz. She holds an MFA from Mills College and was a Graduate Fellow at Headlands Center for the Arts.

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Photographs courtesy of the artist and CULT Aimee Friberg Exhibitions