RON NAGLE: Fast of Words

Matthew Marks is pleased to announce Ron Nagle: Fast of Words, the next exhibition in his gallery at 1062 North Orange Grove in Los Angeles. The exhibition includes twenty new sculptures and a group of related drawings.

The sculptures, each no larger than six-and-a-half inches in any dimension, are made by hand in the artist’s San Francisco studio using a combination of traditional mediums, such as porcelain and ceramic, and more contemporary materials, like catalyzed polyurethane and epoxy resin. Nagle has spoken of the “immediacy” of clay, while critics have noted the wealth of “beguiling effects” offered by his less conventional materials. Color is as important as form for Nagle, who has often described his sculptures as three-dimensional paintings. Like still lives or miniature stage sets, the works evoke both landscapes and interiors. As Nagle has said, “they’ve got sort of this inside/outside quality. I always like the mystery of looking inside something in this kind of intimate observation, where you can see what’s going on, but then there’s also something beyond.”

Nagle’s titles, often filled with humorous wordplay, also contribute to this sense of mystery. Examples such as Class Clone (2022) and Code-Blooded (2022) offer cheeky entry points for observation. Notcholism (2022), a pun that highlights the form’s physical construction, is part of a new series modeled after Brutalist architecture, Nagle’s latest source of inspiration. Other references Nagle has cited as inspiration for his work include the Japanese aesthetic philosophy of shibui, San Francisco hot-rod cars of the 1960s, and the paintings of Morandi and Guston –– “there is source material everywhere, you’ve just got to have the guts to see it and pursue it.”