AMY NATHAN: Glyph Slipper

On view: September 13 - December 7, 2019
Artist reception: September 13, 6-8 PM

CULT Aimee Friberg Exhibitions is pleased to present its first solo exhibition of work by Amy Nathan. Glyph Slipper comprises new works from Nathan’s multifaceted sculpture and drawing-based practice examining the intersection of object and language as they relate to the colonization of the female body from the ancient past to the present moment. Glyph Slipper opens on September 13 with a reception from 6-8 pm and runs through October 26, 2019. The opening reception is free to the public and the artist will be in attendance.

Nathan’s work is varied both in its materiality and process. Lines from drawings on paper are translated into wood and marble sculptures; tablets are cast from both silicone and clay. Movement from one material to another is fluid and varied and a thoughtful rhythm emerges from this playful experimentation and dexterity between forms. Nathan has described her process as an application of pressure to images and language, “cracking open their systems and “distending them into expanded space”.

In Glyph Slipper, Nathan also applies pressure to Western Mythology. In a time of major cultural reset, mythology provides fertile ground for the interrogation of how the world has been shaped through storytelling: who tells the stories and why do we accept their premises? With this work, Amy Nathan circles back to the retelling of myths from Ovid’s Metamorphosis, specifically the intersecting tales of Andromeda, Medusa and Perseus, to consider the control enacted on female bodies. Just as the new translation of the Odyssey—by its first female translator, Emily Wilson—makes visible the inequalities between characters and the context of gender in power relationships, Nathan’s work explores the assumptions we gloss over in these traditional western narratives and how the stories allude to our current hierarchies and social gender dynamics.

Drawing from her early career as a typographer, Nathan deploys a set of symbols or “tools” to dismantle and reconfigure the female narrative. In Glyph Slipper tools associated with female adornment appear throughout the work and represent the objects that we associate with how women present themselves to the world. Nathan states:

This body of work relates the small mechanisms women use to hold their bodies and lives together, to the words, will and strength required to do so. Repeated and regular use changes these objects--bobby pins, rope, zippers, safety pins, locks--into the alphabet women use to present ourselves in the face of contemporary culture and government. I am thinking about the ways that women keep their act together in the face of misogyny, governmental control of our bodies, the constant giving of motherhood and just in being a woman.

Amy Nathan will be joined by artist and educator Catherine Wagner for a conversation and exhibition walk-through on Wednesday, September 25 at 6PM. Attendance is limited; please rsvp to info@cultexhibitions.com to secure your spot.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Amy Nathan is an artist based in Berkeley, California. Her work has recently been exhibited at Art Toronto, Art Market San Francisco, the Seattle Art Fair, the Headlands Center for the Arts, Traywick Contemporary, and with the International Sculpture Center at the Pyramid Hill Museum. Nathan was a 2018-2019 Graduate Fellow at the Headlands Center for the Arts. She received her MFA from Mills College in 2018, and she is a co-director of Royal NoneSuch Gallery in Oakland, California. Her work has appeared in the New American Paintings and Sculpture Magazine.

Image credits: (from left): Amy Nathan, Janus Flounder, 2019, ink and flashe on paper, 30 x 22 inches; Amy Nathan, Herma, 2019, marble, drystone, acrylic, metal, fishing weights, wire, brick, 22 x 16.5 x 8 inches; Images courtesy of CULT Aimee Friberg Exhibitions
Oracle, 2019, Pigmented Drystone, Acrylic, Steel, 16.25 x 7.5 x 6 in.
Her Part, 2019, Hydrocal, Fiberglass, Steel, Acrylic and Flashe, 16 x 10 x 6.5 in.
Goya Tights, 2019, Ink on paper, 11.375 x 9.125 in.
Lady Slipper, 2019, Ink and flashe on paper, 22 x 30 in.
Handwriting Bows, 2019, Ink and colored pencil on paper, 38 x 50 in.
Janus Flounder, 2019, Ink and flashe on paper, 30 x 22 in.
Backbend, 2019, Ink on paper, 18 x 9.5 in.
Herma II, 2019, Hydrocal, Brass wire, Fibreglass and cord, 25.5 x 11.25 x .5 in.
Murmur, 2019, Marble, turnstone, epoxy clay, 19.5 x 26 x 3 in.
Brushstroke Shield, 2019, Acrylic on Lead Sheet, Latex on Wood, 24 x 16.5 x 3 in.
Herma, 2019, Marble, drystone, acrylic, metal fishing weights, wire, brick, 22 x 16.5 x 8 in.
Forever separated, forever attached, 2019, Acrylic on Panel, Acrylic and Flashe on Hydrocal, Epoxy Clay, Hardware, 60 x 46 x 3 in.
Offering, 2019, Acrylic on Panel Hydocal, Epoxy Clay, Hardware, Marble and Plexiglass, 63.25 x 46 x 3 in. 19. Echo, 2019, Pigmented Drystone, 18.5 x 15 x .5 in. (Outside)

Current

CULT TURNS 10
10 Year Anniversary Exhibition
January 18 - March 2, 2024

Past

Terri Loewenthal
Mountain Goat Mountain

September 15 – November 18, 2023

Time is a Tangled Web: Mary Fernando Conrad, Sophronia Cook, Cross Lypka, Tyler Cross, Zhivago Duncan, Jean Isamu Nagai, Rachel Kaye, Ruth Charlotte Kneass at CULT Bureau, Oakland
September 28 - December 16, 2023

Last Light: Luz Carabaño, Sophronia Cook, Cross Lypka, and Aidan Koch
June 23 - August 26, 2023

ECHO ECHO: Rachel Bridges and Ivan Bridges at CULT Bureau, Oakland
March 2 - August 5, 2023

Two Handfuls Of Silver Dust: Rhonda Holberton
April 27 - June 17, 2023

LEGACY: Binta Ayofemi, Adrian L. Burrell, Rachel Bridges, Ivan Bridges, Masako Miki, and Jean Isamu Nagai
January 18 - April 1, 2023

ZHIVAGO DUNCAN: Measuring Consciousness
September 15 - December 10, 2022

CULT Bureau: Gaze Interrupted
September 17 - November 19, 2022

AMY NATHAN: Slipknot Loophole
May 14 - August 26, 2022

Rebekah Goldstein: Welcome Home Stranger
March 19 - May 7, 2022

Sapiens / Stories at CULT Bureau
November 10, 2021 - April 30, 2022

Physics & Fiction
January 20 - March 12, 2022

Chris Fallon: Irresistible Deception
October 15 - December 18, 2021

Sapiens / Stories on 8-Bridges
October 7 - November 3, 2021

Masako Miki: New Mythologies
June 16 - October 12, 2021

Tales of Metamorphosis: Rebekah Goldstein, James Perkins, and Amy Nathan
June 3 - 30, 2021

Janus II - CULT's 7 Year Anniversary Exhibition
April 9 - May 20, 2021

Troy Chew: Yadadamean
October 17 - December 12, 2020

We’re all in this together
August 14 - October 10, 2020

Beyond Words
June 26 - August 29, 2020

Ritual of Succession
January 10 - March 28, 2020

Record of Succession at fused space
January 13 - March 27, 2020

AMY NATHAN: Glyph Slipper
September 13 - December 7, 2019

FEMALE TROUBLE 2
June 28 - August 3, 2019

RUXUE ZHANG
April 20 - June 15, 2019

MASAKO MIKI: Shapeshifters
January 12 - March 23, 2019

JASKO BEGOVIC (SKO HABIBI): HUMAN_E.T.
November 30 - December 14, 2019

REBEKAH GOLDSTEIN: See You On The Flipside
September 8 - November 25, 2018

FEMALE TROUBLE
June 9 - July 28, 2018

TERRI LOEWENTHAL: Psychscapes
March 2 - May 19, 2018

VECINOS
October 27, 2017 - January 20, 2018

RHONDA HOLBERTON: Still Life
January 10 – March 4, 2017

REBEKAH GOLDSTEIN: Release Me
October 21 - December 10, 2016

NO SHOW MUSEUM: Yves Klein, Maria Eichhorn, Daniel Knorr, Etc.
One Night Only: Monday, October 17, 2016

DESIRÉE HOLMAN: Selected Works
September 17 - October 8, 2016

SHE MOONAGE DAYDREAM:
Facundo Argañaraz, Leah Guadagnoli, Desirée Holman, Kara Joslyn, Max Maslansky, Liz Robb, Tamra Seal, Emily Weiner, & Cate White

July 16 - August 20, 2016

PABLO DÁVILA: Ladies & Gentlemen,
We Are Floating In Space

May 13 - July 9, 2016

MASAKO MIKI: Conversations with Fox, Feather, and Ghost
March 4 - April 30, 2016

SUZY POLING: Total Internal Reflection
January 15 - February 27, 2016

DAN GLUIBIZZI: You Don’t Have to be Alone Tonight
November 6 – December 19, 2015

FRANCESCO IGORY DEIANA: Haptic Render
September 11- October 31, 2015

SEXXXITECTURE: Daniel Gerwin, Rebekah Goldstein, Roman Liška, Max Maslansky, May Wilson & Jake Ziemann
July 1 - August 1, 2015

ADAM SORENSEN: In Situ
May 1 - June 27, 2015

KLARA KÄLLSTRÖM & THOBIAS FÄLDT: Village / High Hills
February 27 - April 25, 2015

PRINCE RAMA: How To Live Forever
January 25 – February 21, 2015

JOSEPH DUMBACHER & JOHN DUMBACHER: Divert (Out of Line)
November 7, 2014 – January 16, 2015

REBEKAH GOLDSTEIN: Passenger
September 12 – November 1, 2014

A PATTERN LANGUAGE: Michelle Grabner, Angie Wilson & Lena Wolff
June 20 - July 19, 2014

MICHELLE BLADE: Gathering Into Being
April 25th – June 7th, 2014

MIGUEL ARZABE: /*Reject Algorithms*/
March 7 – April 19, 2014

JACQUELINE KIYOMI GORDON: Drawings
March 7 – April 19, 2014

FRITZ CHESNUT: Purr Valley
& Rhonda Holberton

January 10 - February 22, 2014

UNSEEN: Miya Ando, Miguel Arzabe, Chris Duncan, Klea Mckenna & Dean Smith
November 10 - December 21, 2013

Past Off-Site Exhibitions

RHONDA HOLBERTON: Still Life 2
April 7 - May 26, 2018

LAS COSAS QUE PINTAN / PAINTING IN AN EXPANSIVE FIELD
Works by Miguel Arzabe & Juan Sorrentino

April 9 – May 17, 2015

EBB: Gina Borg and Chris Russell at Loczi Design
December 10, 2014