Please check out the review in the Charlotte Observer on the exhibition I'm currently included in at the UNCC Projective Eye Gallery alongside Jennifer Angus and a host of other wonderful artists. http://bit.ly/2oG0f76  

a quick and so-called dirty recap to catch you up on what’s happened since january!

escape to create residency

the month of february was spent in blissful residency. a productive time experimenting with new materials, sucking down oysters on the half shell and wandering the beach. the fruits of said labor can be seen in the new portions of the website which i hope you’ve noticed here and here. both the creature documentation and alternate landscape works are the foundations to a much larger body of work using materials otherwise destined for landfill, as well as installations. also notable is the shift towards photographic presentation.

beneath the fold exhibition in kansas city

and this month has been centered around my solo exhibition at city ice arts in kansas city, mo. kansas city has a vibrant art scene and my show was in a beautiful gallery run by wonderful people. i was really thrilled with the show. i even received a fab review noting my work as “mind-bending and sexy”! if you’re so inclined, you can check that out here! kevin and i were also blown away by the fantastic people we met and hung out with there. we’ve only been back a few days, but we miss our new friends terribly.

artfields

and if you happen to be wandering through lake city, sc the next couple weeks, definitely check out my work at Beach Cruisers at 137 east main street. and feel free to vote for me while you’re there!

mccoll center for visual art studio party on saturday, may 3rd

party like it’s 1999! i think the theme for this party is purple, in which case i will be in trouble. i don’t have any purple. aside from that, i have works up for sale in this truly fun and fabulous fundraiser for the mccoll center for visual art here in charlotte, nc. it’s a wonderful opportunity to party with artists, collectors, and a fabulous organization, as well as buy art you’ll wonder what you were thinking the following morning. sort of like that mysterious tattoo that showed up after that crazy night while on spring break. no really, there is some phenomenal art up for sale including work by aurora robson (love her work!). proceeds are split between the artist and the facility, so everyone wins! and the food and beverages are fantastic. we had a ball last year. my studio had sushi.

happy new years! it’s my favorite holiday of the year, celebrating the old, looking forward to the fresh and squeaky clean new year! some quick updates in case you don’t follow my facebook page:

new residency

i’m so thrilled to share with you i’ve been awarded a month long residency at the Sam and Adele Golden Foundation for the Arts for this june, 2014. it is a wonderful residency program which i’m really looking forward to. the foundation started by the family behind Golden Artist Colors, the well known acrylic paint manufacturer, strives “to be a resource for the arts community that has supported us for so many years, by providing grants to both artists and art organizations”. the first week will be spent in an intensive session learning the in’s and out’s of all their products, and then i’ll be set free to see what havoc i can wreak! with access to their research and development team, i’ll be exploring new ways i can use these materials to expand my current work into new formations. for more information on the foundation and their program, go to their website here.

mention

i also found a nice little write up about my work while at the McColl Center for Visual Arts at KnightArts.org:

“The work of Natalie Abrams and Natalie Bork particularly resonated with me emotionally and visually…. Abrams also offers a textural experience, but with an entirely different medium: encaustic, which is a pigmented hot wax. Abrams’ ribbon like forms literally leap forward at the viewer, echoing the complex structures and textures of coral reefs and the seabed. Abrams is interested in the biodiversity of these natural landscapes as well as manmade environments like the urban-scape. Her work on view at the McColl is untitled, leaving the type of landscape up to the viewer. For me, works like “Untitled 11.14,” done on a wooden panel with the wood grain evident, recalled the bio-diverse environment of a live oak, where centuries of life has attracted mosses, ferns and mushrooms.”

always catching up! such a busy summer, i hope yours was as wonderful as mine!

dear nature at artspace raleigh update

originally planned by curator lia newman and completed by curator shana dumont garr, this wonderful exhibition with work by cynthia camlin, mi-sook hur and myself is over now, but lives on through photos and a lovely write up by dave delcambre. a snippet regarding my work:

Natalie Abrams’ work seems inseparable from her process. Her media of choice – wax on wood panels – recalls Abstract Expressionist painting in its puddled drip patterns, layering of color, and gestural forms, but her work also harkens to intricate lapidarical forms and the layered shapes and patterns often found in nature (think growth rings, coral, plant stems and tree trunks.) Piecing together ribbon-like forms of wax in floral patterns and lyrical, bouquet-like shapes hardens both to the intricacy of her subject matter and the artists’s facility working within the plasticity of her media. It is this counterbalance of the two – precarious and fluid, malleable yet decisive and gestural – which is especially intriguing.

losing ground, gaining perspective at gallery x update:

the installation was a resounding success despite the amazing vine which had appeared in my gallery space. it fit so well with the concept, it felt prophetic. please take a moment to look at the photos from a beautiful show in an eclectic space.

objects in perspective: a collaboration with aspen hochhalter

at the very beginning of my wonderful residency at the mccoll center for visual art over the summer, fellow resident aspen hochhalter and i started talking about our both being from colorado, interests in certain photographic processing techniques, and on and on. the idea of working together for fun was immediately put to the test and the results became a body of work and an exhibition. aspen’s wet plate macro photographs of my pieces were first exhibited in the galleries at the mccoll center during our residency, then included in conjunction with my pieces in the “collaboration” exhibition at mona gallery in charlotte, then both of our work again in the two person show under the name “objects in perspective” at the gaston county museum. this collaboration continues to grow and will again be shown in an expanded format at pease gallery at cpcc in charlotte, nc next fall. feel free to check out more details and photos of the work under projects.

next residency this winter!

the next big event for me will be my residency in seaside, fl at escape to create. a wonderful program, i’ll be developing a whole new body of work using recycled, reuse materials which would otherwise be destined for landfill. conceptually, this work is really important to me in that i feel it really expands the conversation i’m trying to represent in my work about the relationship between the natural world and the man-made. these new materials and process will also allow me a whole new flexibility for application and installation which i’m quite excited about. i’ll actually be working on an installation while there, and hope to post photos as the piece comes together!

beneath the fold at city ice arts in april

in april, i’ll have a solo exhibition at a wonderful space in kansas city, mo at city ice arts. while work for the exhibition hasn’t been finalized yet, i’m anticipating some exciting new large scale works, my new small wax on paper pieces and, if everything goes well, an installation in the new materials i’ll be working with during my february residency. hope to see you there!

time to play a little catch up with the news!

losing ground, gaining perspective, provincetown, massachusetts

i will be making my curatorial debut with a four-person exhibition at gallery x at castle hill in provincetown, massachusetts, 5.30 thru 6.7.2013. the show will exhibit works from artists laura moriarty, lorrie fredette, paula roland and myself. the exhibition will be held in conjunction with the seventh international encaustic conference. more details on this tremendous conference can be found here. i’m quite excited about this exhibition and the opportunity to work with three artists i really admire and hope you’ll take just a moment to learn more about “losing ground, gaining perspective“.

mccoll center residency and studio 13 party “magical mystery tour“, charlotte, nc

starting at the beginning of april, i’ll be a resident at the mccoll center for visual arts through mid-august. the first couple weeks will be getting set up and preparing for one of the mccoll center’s parties, studio party 13. the theme this year is “magical mystery tour”, and you’re just going to have to come to see how i fit out the studio! hint… think psychedelic! for more information, visit the strawberry fields of the mccoll center here. the remainder of my residency will be no less exciting as i get to work, transitioning my sculpture from wall-hung to freestanding work, with the wax giving way to recycled materials. i invite you to come down and see me and the work in person in studio #216. for those who don’t have the opportunity to visit, why not!?! i will miss you, but please stay tuned to the site as i’ll be posting on my blog about studio developments and the continued development of my work. i might even have some video to share.