The Art Institute of Chicago's Nathaniel Smyth

Nathaniel Smyth
MFA (printmedia) awarded May 2006
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Artist's Contact:

nathanielsmyth@mac.com

www.nathanielsmyth.com

Artist's Statement:

I use photography and scanned images to make digital prints whose meanings are rooted in the perception and doubt of the embodied mind. I create new realities that are drawn from a shared cultural memory and from my own personal iconography.

In most of my prints, I layer and combine different images with similar subjects in a process that mimics the way our brains deal with incoming sensory data. Ideas and images coalesce directly on the page, capturing the process of memory and recognition itself. They become traces of the way we remember things, images of our experiences.

I also create mapping prints that investigate our conception of space. I scout out specific locations in my surroundings where, standing in one place, I take pictures of everything at every possible angle. All photographs are then collaged together such that the horizons form continuous circles resulting in images that look a bit like small planets, which are then arranged spatially to form a visual representation of an area.

 

It is my desire as a visual artist to create a body of work that is both visually and intellectually stimulating for my audience, to collapse space and time in a picture that continues to reward the viewer over time. All of my prints are concerned with accumulated perception, challenging the viewer to decide whether that accumulation clarifies or clouds understanding and asking what the ramifications of that decision are.

The world we live in is always mediated through our perceptions, that much we know; by encouraging the viewer to reconsider their perception and memory, I hope to underscore the importance of both.

Artist's Biography:

Nathaniel Smyth is originally from Spring Valley, Ohio. In 2002 he earned a BFA in sculpture from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. He later relocated to Chicago to complete an MFA in printmedia at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He makes prints, drawings and sculptures that are concerned with the limits of our perceptions and the ways in which we make sense of our surroundings.

About The School at the Art Institute of Chicago:

Recognized as an innovator in the arts since its inception more than 100 years ago, and internationally esteemed as a school of art and design, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago offers a comprehensive college education centered in the visual and related arts.

The school's primary purpose is to foster the conceptual and technical education of the artist in a highly professional and studio-oriented environment. Believing that the artist's success is dependent on both creative vision and technical expertise, the school encourages excellence, critical inquiry and experimentation.

The teaching of studio art, the complementary programs in art history, theory, criticism and liberal arts, the visiting artists, and the collections and exhibitions of one of the world's finest museums all contribute to the variety, the challenge and the resonance of the educational experience.

Graduate and undergraduate students and a superb faculty of artists and scholars work in close proximity, sharing resources and establishing a forum for critiquing and refining technical abilities and conceptual concerns.

The museum galleries, the graduate studios and seminar rooms, the libraries, undergraduate studios, school galleries and classrooms create a lively and stimulating environment that facilitates the exchange of ideas among students at all levels.