Morgan Lehman Gallery is pleased to present Nancy Lorenz’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. The exhibition opens on May 2nd with a reception for the artist from 6-8pm, and will be on view through June 29th.
In her newest body of work Lorenz pulls from her direct experience while at the Cill Rialaig artist residency, located in South West County Kerry, Ireland. The ominous, and often stormy, weather patterns in the region are documented through Lorenz's sketchbook practice. Her daily recordings of the tumultuous cloudscapes are rendered in (peat bog) ash, watercolor and colored pencil on book cloth. These initial drawings capture the fleeting yet visceral energy of the elements and later inform her elaborate paintings of the same subject. Responding to gusts of wind or a rippling ocean, Lorenz’s immediate markings sketchily manifest her transcendental experience of the awe inspiring coastal weather. These deeply personal and elegantly minimal drawings will be exhibited as independent works for the first time in this exhibition. The overall body of work born from the residency evokes in equal parts the tumultuous spirit of 19th century American landscape painters such as Winslow Homer, and the frenetic immediacy of Minimalism’s icon Cy Twombly.
A direct influence of her time in Japan as an adolescent, Lorenz’s paintings have long presented subjects of the sublime in luxurious materials most commonly associated with a craft tradition. Evoking the Atlantic in waves of mother of pearl, moonlight in reflective panels of silver, or squalls of rain in energetic carvings on gold-leafed corrugated cardboard, Lorenz blurs the lines between design and high art. Initiating her process with very loose, gestural drawings in Sumi ink, her paintings evolve into incredibly lavish, worked surfaces that are as complex and moving as the elements she observed in Ireland. Fusing a Japanese aesthetic with the incidental marks and unrestrained brushwork of Abstract Expressionism, Lorenz has inserted her luxurious materiality into the realm of art history. Synchronously a Minimalist in composition, a Modernist in subject matter and a master of her technique, Lorenz has developed an east-meets-west ideology that is uniquely her own.
Nancy Lorenz received her MFA from the Tyler School of Art in 1988, studying in Philadelphia and Rome. A John Solomon Guggenheim award recipient in 1998, Lorenz has exhibited internationally and her work is included in prestigious private and public collections, including the Portland Museum of Art and the United States Consulate in Istanbul. An extensive list of public commissions include the Gucci Towers in Tokyo and Hong Kong, the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles, the Mandarin Oriental in the Time/Warner Center in New York, and Chanel stores in Paris, Shenyang, Hong Kong, and Ginza. Her third collection of limited edition luxury boxes made in collaboration with Bottega Veneta debuted in Milan in April 2013.
A full color catalog with accompanying essay by critic and poet Geoffrey Young has been published on the occasion of this exhibition. For more information, please contact the gallery at 212.268.6699.
