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K Space Contemporary proudly presents Palimpsest a series of new works by Scott Nicol. The exhibition opens March 7th with the downtown Corpus Christi ArtWalk. The artist will present a gallery talk on Saturday, March 8th at 10:00 am. Palimpsest is process, in Scott Nicol’s art and in art history. For the ancient Greeks it meant writing on wax tablets, then heating the wax to erase the words before writing something else, with traces of old texts at times visible beneath the new layers. In Nicol’s artistic practice drawings are layered like sediments in a river delta, images coming to rest one atop another, some rising to the surface, some buried. Forms drawn in graphite or Conté crayon on a sheet of drafting vellum come about organically, spontaneous marks giving rise to images without a predetermined idea of the ultimate outcome. One page is filled, set aside, and a new one is started. Over time (months, even years) a stack of drawn forms accumulates, and these are spread on the ground, the transparency of the paper allowing one to be seen through another, creating unanticipated correspondences and relationships. Bathed in beeswax on a panel of birch they are bound together and enlivened.
Though imagery and form are not predetermined in Nicol’s work, elements resembling bits of the natural world—bones and beaks, tendons and claws—emerge on the page. Anatomical structures, the necessary scaffolding upon which bodies are built, assert themselves, neither literal nor intentional, yet impossible to ignore. Nicol’s interest lies in movement—the wind that bends the branch and shapes the tree—rather than the static form itself. The artist is less concerned with what these shapes appear to be and more with their action, emphasizing the verb over the noun. Through layers of vellum and wax, the work captures a sense of motion—running, dancing, flying, and rising—bringing anatomy to life with a dynamic energy.
The impetus for Scott Nicol’s artistic practice arose from time spent in the rainforests of Venezuela and Ecuador while an undergraduate student at Austin College. During graduate studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio he built upon this experience, traveling to the desert of southern Utah and the lowland rainforest of Costa Rica to construct work intimately bound to those ecosystems. Upon receiving his MFA he taught college summer courses at the La Suerte Biological Field Station in Costa Rica and the Ometepe Biological Field Station in Nicaragua. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Visual Arts at South Texas College in McAllen, Texas.
K Space Contemporary is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to presenting and promoting contemporary art. Gallery hours are Wednesday - Saturday 11 am to 5 pm and Sunday 12 to 4 pm. We are located at 623 N. Chaparral Street in downtown Corpus Christi, Texas. To learn more, please visit www.kspacecontemporary.org or follow us on Instagram or Facebook @kspacecontemporary.
Image: untitled by Scott Nicol
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
623 N. Chaparral Street, Corpus Christi, TX, United States, Texas 78401
