In the Studio: Nathan Mabry

Nathan Mabry buys tons of stuff on eBay. That’s where the Los Angeles–based sculptor, who was trained as a ceramist, found his electric front-loading kiln for a mere $1,500 (and a commitment to pick it up from Oklahoma City). That’s where he bought two West African Senufo rhythm pounders, wooden sculptures that now stand proudly in his studio. And that’s where he gets many of the latex masks—from frightening Halloween disguises to a face of Michelangelo’s David—that he has devilishly slipped onto venerable figurative sculptures before photographing them.

Then there’s his biggest find yet: a seven-and-a-half-foot-tall bronze re-creation of Rodin’s Thinker, offered on eBay by a California foundry. Mabry has just bought it for $10,000 and is awaiting its delivery when I meet with him at his Culver City studio one fall day last year. “I’m really excited to see it,” he says, showing me a picture of the pseudo-Thinker, which has strangely exaggerated features. “I will be putting a mask on it to create a pastiche of a pastiche.”

Nathan Mabry’s eBay habit says something about the way he works—sampling and synthesizing different cultural influences and artifacts, high and low, modern and ancient, handmade and mass-produced. Just 30 years old, he is fast becoming known for creating pieces that combine forms associated with hard-core Minimalist sculpture (think Donald Judd or Carl Andre) with the erotic shapes common in pre-Columbian Peruvian ceramics. It may sound gimmicky, but Mabry pulls off this pairing with a light touch and a wry sense of humor, not critiquing either aesthetic as much as playing with—and embracing—them.

This month, both his new sculpture and the adjusted Rodin readymade will appear in the artist’s much-anticipated second solo exhibition at Cherry and Martin gallery, in Los Angeles. Before partnering with Philip Martin, Mary Leigh Cherry had shown Mabry herself, starting in 2004, right after he graduated from UCLA’s MFA program and just a few months before the Hammer Museum’s “Thing” show of new sculpture, in which the artist featured prominently. Cherry and Martin has since launched him internationally, through a solo show in L.A. that remains up until April 15 and via displays at art fairs. The gallery devoted its entire booth to Mabry last year at the New Art Dealers Alliance (nada) fair during Art Basel Miami Beach. His work was also part of the “Red Eye” show of Los Angeles work at the Rubell Family Collection.

Along with the Rubells, other early collectors of Mabry’s works include L.A.–based media executive Dean Valentine, London-based financial analyst Amir Shariat and the ubiquitous Charles Saatchi, who owns two of the artist’s sculptures and a set of three photographs. Mabry’s prices now start around $5,000, for a drawing, and go up to $70,000, for major sculptures, which are typically issued in editions of three.

“People are drawn to the quality of the works as objects,” says Philip Martin. “There are a lot of different levels on which you could enter his works. You can look at them conceptually, as with Brancusi—what’s the sculpture and what’s the base? You can look at them as a combination of different cultures. You can look at the sense of humor. But above all they have a peculiar presence as objects."

The artist is talking with galleries in New York, Milan and Tokyo about representation. But at press time Cherry and Martin was Mabry’s only gallery. It’s a challenge, Cherry says: “When everything’s selling so fast, how do you share it?”

“I like the pace I have right now,” the artist tells me. “Getting another gallery is not my focus.” Rather, his focus is getting ready for his new show, and his studio reflects this. A one-story cinder-block building previously used as a machine shop, the 2,900-square-foot space is still filled with industrial-looking machines. Along the right wall are a top-loading kiln, a front-loading kiln, a chop saw and a Dust Dog system to suck up the mess. Toward the back, where Mabry’s wife, Tia Pulitzer (a sculptor who shows with Black Dragon Society, in L.A.), has set up shop, are workbenches and hand tools.