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A painting by Nathan Slate Joseph. COURTESY KEYES ART
“Watching the Detectives: The Work of Nathan Slate Joseph” opens at Keyes Art in Sag Harbor on Saturday, May 6, with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. The show runs through June 2.
George Negroponte writes in an essay about the artist work: “Nathan Slate Joseph paints like a sculptor and makes sculptures like a painter. In this sense, his coterie could include Alberto Giacometti and John Chamberlain. Joseph’s paintings occupy more space than a conventional work with heavily pigmented surfaces on galvanized steel that have a gritty and fleshy earnestness. The sculptures read like facades and require the labor-intensive patience of a bricklayer. Joseph often delineates each smaller rectangle with seams or stitching underscoring a larger grid/pattern that create a flickering light challenging the mathematical certainty of some of his Minimalist predecessors. The energy builds on the surface, weaving imperfectly across each work. Joseph’s use of sky blues, rust oranges, and blood reds further separates him from the more austere sensibilities of Brice Marden or Agnes Martin. Joseph owes his sensibility to the Mediterranean, more precisely the Levant, the area Jews settled in 1492 after expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula.”
Keyes Art is located at 45 Main Street, Sag Harbor, adjacent to The American Hotel. For details, visit juliekeyesart.com.
Staff Writer on May 1, 2023