NATHAN HAYDEN

What was Magic of Numbers, Hypnotic and Wonders

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December 16 - April 8 in the First and Second Floor Gallery

 

Growing up in the woods of West Virginia in a log cabin built by his father with early interests in biology and engineering, Nathan Hayden developed an affinity for patterns and structures found in nature, examining the natural world with one eye towards the pastoral elements of his surroundings and the other on the more molecular levels of our planet. His initial exposure to the outdoors proved formative in how he would eventually choose to abstract the world around him.

Presenting recent ceramic sculptures and a series of earth-based pigment and ink impressions on felt, this exhibition reveals Hayden’s deep relationship with nature and the rigorous drawing practice that provides the foundation of his exuberant work exploring surrealistic landscapes, biomorphic forms and geometric abstraction. 

Hayden spent considerable time in Louisville, KY honing his craft before moving to California where he earned his MFA in 2009 from the University of California, Santa Barbara; and the exhibition includes a selection of previous works completed in Louisville from 2001-2006. Fictive mechanical renderings of alien worlds, these diagrammatic visions serve as a bridge between the densely wooded environments of earlier works and his more recent minimal landscapes.  Also featuring one of his signature wall installations, Hayden will spend a week on site at KMAC creating a mural that will give the viewer a look into his ritualistic process. 

Influenced by science fiction, botany, and ceremonial dancing for good weather and healthy crops, his creative development has been tethered to the rural Appalachian landscape of his childhood, presently transmuted in the southwest inspired vistas that populate his current images of psychedelic sun drenched ocean views and desert plains.

What was Magic of Numbers, Hypnotic and Wonders charts Hayden’s metaphysical journey between the East and West poles of the United States poetically reworking the philosophical, scientific, and spiritual qualities of his entire physical and aesthetic universe.