21 WADE AVE #2 | Toronto

Nathan Eugene Carson | Blessings, Onward | 20 OCT - 19 NOV, 2022

“Let’s forget the past.” 

Let’s forget about exhibitions and artist statements before this. Let’s forget about all other processes and materials except for these processes and materials. Let’s talk about writing love songs to our communities and prayers and magic. Let’s talk about the feeling of reemerging slowly, safely and reconnecting with loved ones. Let’s talk about living simply and creatively and making paintings in our carpeted living rooms and crowded kitchens. Let’s talk about conjuring new friends from paint and paper and what a blessing it is to do so. 

Nathan Eugene Carson asked me to forget the past prior to writing this, and I only somewhat succeeded. In doing so, we decided to craft this text at the same time the work in his exhibition, Blessings, Onward, his first show with Patel Brown, was still being dreamt up, conjured into pigment, applied to paper, and then partially scrubbed off that paper. 

Blessings, Onward is indebted to this particular moment when the season is changing, and some playful mystery is in the air. Nathan and I talked about the changing weather and how we both enjoy the fall but also really sympathize with folks who mentally struggle with transitory times. We both noted how thankful we were for our good moods. At this moment, Nathan is most likely painting in his apartment, and listening to disco or gospel music. He’s known to listen to death metal or hardcore rap while working, but not right now, it’s not the right time for that particular type of heaviness. For Nathan, this is the season of levity and relishing in every minute in the studio. Blessings, Onward offers the opportunity to luxuriate; to revel in each perfect, incongruent color pairing that gets mixed. To welcome every new face, every new character, every new ‘soul’ that emerges from bright, thick pigment. You can see this lightness in Nathan’s new work, as he tells me that he hasn’t yet used the colour black once, not even as a base colour, which he typically does as a composition anchor. 

Nathan works mainly on found or recycled surfaces. Using paper and cardboard with various qualities and types of paints, this unaffected approach enables notable ease and excitement in his mark-making. As paint is layered and removed, characters emerge slowly, and unpretentiously, resulting in a particular type of shimmering alchemy.

As suggested in the title, Blessings, Onward acts as an invitation to be forward-thinking. To take stock of everything we are thankful for and to move onwards with gratitude. 

I’ve just asked Nathan if we want to talk about the past a little bit, and he agreed, but only briefly. 

Nathan’s previous works have been equally vibrant, intense, and contemplative. Quietly brimming-over with narratives and symbolism, emerging from his particular brand of reductive painting and collaging of mixed-media. His works are deeply intuitive and inherently reflect the artist’s thoughts and feelings toward personal and contemporary events. In the case of Black Carnival Audience (2015 – ongoing) and Negro (2015) series, Nathan’s work spoke directly to the historical and contemporary struggles of Black folks — and, most recently his exhibition Cut from the same cloth(2022) was presented months after George Floyd’s murder, and the rising prevalence of the Black Lives Matter movement and consequential anti-racist reckoning. Nathan’s most recent exhibition, Long Lost Friends (2022), was presented on the heels of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, and celebrated the reunion of loved ones, and commemorated those who we have lost. Blessings, Onward similarly reflects a moment in time; but for Nathan, this particular moment is quiet, productive, happy, and celebratory. One common thread in his work is the drive to unpack the human experience, albeit subconsciously, through his visceral, expressive handling of paint and media. 

This new body of work is more jovial and nebulous than previous projects: less sharp in its political messaging but more intuitive, untroubled, and almost-euphoric in its paint handling. This is an exhibition born out of friendship, and appreciation and created majorly “by the artist, for the artist” - one who is simply happy to be in the studio cooking up something new, with cat closely adjacent and music bellowing. 

- Jenna Faye Powell 

Nathan Eugene Carson’s heavily layered paint and collage works explore hybrid creatures, animals and human figures - both fictional and historical. His subjects emerge from richly-pigmented surfaces, and shed light on narratives that weave together themes of Black identity and history, personal memories, and charged symbolism. Carson holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Ontario College of Art and Design. His drawings and paintings have been featured in several solo and group exhibitions across Canada. Carson’s recent travelling solo-exhibition, Cut From The Same Cloth (2020-2021), was presented at the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery and the Meridian Arts Centre, Toronto. He is currently the RBC Artist-In-Residence at the Art Gallery of Hamilton where he is completing a yearlong exhibition titled Black Carnival (2023). 

Jenna Faye Powell is a Canadian artist, writer, and arts administrator based in Toronto, Ontario. With deep interest in intersections between art, environmentalism, and ideas that enact social change, she self-identifies as an optimist. She has attained a MFA degree from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University (2012), as well as a BFA degree from the University of Western Ontario (2009). Powell has exhibited nationally and internationally in various solo and group shows and currently works as the Operations Manager for Partners in Art, and Project Manager of Annandale Artist Residency.