Thursday, November 9, 2023
12:00–1:00 p.m.
LRMA Interactive Gallery
Suggested 10$ Donation
RSVP: https://web.spcollege.edu/survey/35894
Join us at LRMA on November 9th at 12pm as we welcome artist Nathan Beard for an afternoon “coffee talk”.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Nathan Beard creates in St. Petersburg, FL , serves as Assistant Curator at Dunedin Fine Art Center and has been an Adjunct Drawing Instructor at St. Petersburg College – Clearwater. After receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Colorado State University in 2001, Beard worked in galleries and as an Art Consultant in Denver, CO for seven years. He grew up on a dairy farm in western New York. Prior to his university studies, Beard lived in Egypt for one year as an exchange student and, upon his return, worked as a cowboy in Wyoming for two years. He has exhibited extensively since 2013, including Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art, Tampa Museum of Art, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum (Japan), Gallery 221/Hillsborough Community College, Olivet Nazarene University, Morean Arts Center, Dunedin City Hall Gallery, JADA Art Fair (Miami), and Brooker Creek Preserve. Beard’s work is in a number of private and corporate collections, including Framework Group, Silversaw Apartments, Grand Bohemian Hotel, Parkview Medical Center, Great Bay Distributors, B2 Communications, MHK, Penny Hoarder, Osprey Properties, Sabal Trust and Tampa Bay Title. In January 2020, several of Beard’s large paintings were selected to serve in the Arts in Embassies program at the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador.
ARTIST STATEMENT
The Memory Map works on view at the Leepa Rattner Museum of Art are my very newest attempt at understanding the role that fallible memory plays in the shaping of culture and self. These small watercolor studies are Phase II of LIFE LINES, a grand 3-part project in which I am examining my family’s memory of themselves and making artwork that tells their story. I plan to collect all of these studies into a singular book that can be handed down through the generations, or perhaps even preserved in a museum for everyone to see.
To create Memory Maps, I have created a survey for each family member. I ask them some general genealogy questions, since this survey will also function as a historical record, including their three favorite colors. I then ask them to try to remember each year of their life, from birth til now, and assign a rank between 0 and 5 for a) how clear their memory of the year is; b) how important that year was for them; c) how “good” or “bad” the year was. I add these columns together to get an “Accumulative” data set that I use to create a skeleton composed of alternating pentagons and hexagons that rotate as they expand. This part is important since it incorporates movement through time and space as we grow outward. Using the fact that our life’s journey always wavers, I then connect the points and end up with a “map” that resembles the cross-section of a tree, and contains all the metaphors associated with tree rings and natural growth cycles.
Although this project is still unfolding, it is clear that it will bring together a number of explorations and processes I have been playing with over the last ten years. I am indebted to LRMA for the privilege of unveiling this project in this exhibit.
Nathan Beard’s work will be on view September 16 – December 17 in the 2023 SPC Visual Arts Exhibition located in the North and South Galleries.