ALEXANDER GALAN | DATE 7/6/2011

Peter Nadin at Gavin Brown's Enterprise

Peter Nadin's work (on view at Gavin Brown's Enterprise until July 30th) is striking for being both cosmic in spirit and alchemical in its simplicity. The show, which is accompanied by the book Peter Nadin: First Mark, published by Charta, from which these images are reproduced, features a great reflecting pool of honey embedded with bits and pieces from Nadin's Old Field Farm, a forest of rough hewn shamanistic totem poles with clay sculptures of noses and other apparitions, and exquisitely framed linen canvases covered in bee pollen, chicken eggs, ochre, cashmere and wax--mostly culled from the farm.

Nadin's garage studio, 2007.

Honey, Maple Syrup and other items are available for sale in the Bootleg Buying Club at the back of the gallery. Some of the work in the show made its debut in Cuba at the Wilfredo Lam center in Havana before traveling to several smaller cities on the Island. The show in NYC marks an impressive return by Peter Nadin, who has not had a major show in the US for over 15 years.

ABOVE: Peter Nadin, "Icarus II," 2006.
BELOW: the preparation of cashmere, 2005.

To read Randy Kennedy's July 3 feature on Nadin, please visit The New York Times Magazine site.