Artist Nathan Prebonick has made a name for himself locally at a young age. The painter’s abstract work, which delves into landscapes and transitional places, is unmistakable.
His exhibit, which opens Friday, June 23, 5 to 8 p.m., at Nine Muses Art Gallery in Barberton (584 W. Tuscarawas Ave.), may be your last opportunity to see his work before he leaves for graduate school at the Rhode Island School of Design in the fall.
The show, “SPAN,” opens during Barberton’s Fourth Friday and takes a look at his work from the last six months. The opening event and show are free and open to the public.
“You will see a variety of approaches,” he said. “As a painter, I am forced to constantly reinvent myself. I have been challenging my own ideas of how a painting can be made and how it can function. I make paintings about space and ways of seeing. They make you think. I would rather you leave with questions than answers.”
Growing up in Akron, Prebonick said he experienced a landscape in a state of transition.
“My friends and I explored the local historic sites that developed out of many additions and revisions,” he added. “Time changed the meaning of this landscape. Exploring these canals, quarries and old factories brought me to the ideas of history, repurposing, navigation and spatial perception that now guide my studio practice.”
His early paintings and drawings are densely assembled architectural fragments among an abundance of horizon lines and vanishing points. He used thick acrylic paint to build layers of objects into structural images with diverse surfaces.
“Over time, my focus shifted from describing the accumulation of time with the weight of paint to experimenting with more ephemeral and translucent qualities of time, space and visual perception. I began shaping a world in terms of accumulated residues, hazy atmospheres and symbolic replacements.”
These mental and physical landscapes represent cross sections of time, or compressed experiences. They explore how ways of seeing relate to ways of thinking, challenging the viewer to establish a sense of place in a shifting world; a place in both space and time.
Nine Muses Gallery hours are Mondays, 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Thursdays, 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturdays, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and is closed on Sundays. The gallery is open for Barberton Fourth Friday.
Nine Muses is operated by Summit Artspace, the community arts center for Summit County and surrounding areas. For information about Nine Muses Art Gallery go to summitartspace.org or call (330) 376-8480. Find Nine Muses, the Art Center on Tuscarawas and Summit Artspace on Facebook. Summit Artspace is on Twitter @AkronAreaArts, Snapchat and Instagram. Visit www.summitartspace.org for info.
