Close to the Ground

Shop House
Hong Kong, HK
March 18 – April 30, 2023

The Shophouse Hong Kong is pleased to present a new exhibition with New York-based artist Natalie Wadlington, titled Close to the Ground and opening March 17th, 2023. In her paintings, Wadlington seeks to imbue each work with a strong and distinct mood—one of pensiveness, wonderment and uncertainty. This essence reflects the possibilities for both connection and misunderstanding that occur at the boundary between oneself and others, specifically in relation to domesticated animals and outdoor spaces. Presented in the exhibition is a series of eight paintings alongside a selection of works on paper that explore archetypal narratives of love, conflict and misjudgement in relationship to our natural environments and their inhabitants.

Influenced by the unique architecture and layout of the gallery which spans three floors of a former residential apartment complex, the exhibited paintings are smaller in size, however Wadlington maintains a practice of painting subjects and scenes at a 1:1 human scale. While Wadlington’s large-scale paintings present her audience with a scene that is “whole,” the featured pieces dial in on smaller moments and interactions within the overall plot, offering a more direct encounter between viewer and subject. Further, the time allotted to Wadlington by working at an intimate scale enabled her to place a greater focus on the details of each composition, such as building up texture or playing with hues. Continuing to explore the same themes of suburbia and anthropomorphism, Wadlington looked to this body of work partially as an opportunity to progress formal techniques.

Wadlington begins her paintings by generating digital collages using a combination of photos she has taken, elements from past paintings, and stock photos. Through these arrangements, she is able to approach her paintings with a strong understanding of compositional layout to guide their creation. Notably, Wadlington uses images of herself within these collages, modeling her own body to inform the poses of her subjects. To this end, while Wadlington’s paintings are not considered by the artist to be self portraits in the traditional sense, they are very much self reflections of lived experiences and felt emotions.As Wadlington explains: “[The subject] doesn’t necessarily have to be me, but the gesture of the figure has to be informed by something I’ve endured or experienced—that authenticity is important. I’m not telling stories about other people and what they do, I’m telling stories about things I’ve definitely felt, and then maybe other people can relate to that, too.” Honesty is the foundation of Wadlington’s practice, and manifests in her work through a nostalgia of child-like wonderment and reference of familiar surroundings.

Front Yards, Back Yards

Albertz Benda
New York, NY
September 9 – October 8, 2022

Natalie Wadlington’s first solo exhibition in New York opened at Albertz Benda on September 9. Front Yards, Back Yards extends the domestic explorations that characterized the artist’s recent solo presentation at Dallas Contemporary. By spanning drawing, sculpture, and painting, Wadlington employs multiple approaches for immersing viewers in a complex web of relationships between self and other, human and non-human, momentary instance and painterly representation.

Highly stylized narrative scenes combine evocative symbols with personal experience and explore an innate connection to the animals with whom we share domestic space. Fenced in suburban settings recall the backyards in which the artist spent her adolescence while figures are modeled on her own body. Each portrayal is simultaneously autobiographical and transcendent. They resonate on a personal level while speaking to universal feelings of anxiety, excitement, discovery, and fear.

Currently based in New York, Wadlington has been living and working in East Texas for the past several years. She channels the state’s kaleidoscopic skies in this latest body of work. In each composition, Wadlington explores a mood or feeling through palettes drawn from the expansive and ever-changing Texas skyscape. In Front Yard with Crepe Myrtle, sunset’s brilliant colors are refracted across the canvas. Warm orange-pink tones glow on a figure’s skin, a bright pink tongue hangs out of a panting puppy’s mouth as dusk’s imminence is foreshadowed by purple hues landing on the sidewalk. Discrete instances convene to reveal an atmosphere of melancholic peacefulness experienced at day’s end.

Sunsets feel particularly poignant for Wadlington who appreciates this transitional time for its “in-betweenness.” Her work reflects this liminal quality in fleeting, momentary events that are deliberately captured in pigment to be made permanent. Complex perspectival shifts pivot between flatness and depth. Backyards are both wild and domesticated, known and unknown.

In recent works, the artist depicts humans passively—they lounge, curl up, or lay prone upon the ground—in contrast to the more expressive, energetic animals accompanying them. Interactions between humans and animals go beyond language, relying instead upon a deep sense of intuition or spiritual connection.

Thick textural layers of oil paint forge suggestive tactile links—such as the shaggy cat fur scraped into the surface of House Outside of Town. She extends this physicality with a selection of ceramic creatures developed over the past year. Working with high fire clay, Wadlington sculpts a selection of life-size insects that seem to crawl across the gallery walls; a seated dog wears a brindle coat ‘knitted’ out of clay. Brought together, these works invite us into the artist’s private sphere, offering access to her observations of the living, breathing world around us. 

Places That Grow

Dallas Contemporary
Dallas, TX
April 16 – August 21, 2022

The Dallas Contemporary hosts Natalie Wadlington’s first museum exhibition, Places That Grow. Wadlington communicates the complexity of anthropomorphism, where our tendency to project human thoughts and feelings onto other species can be both beneficial in inspiring empathy in us to care for pets or support environmental causes, as well as detrimental in perpetuating a lack of knowledge about their unique social habits and needs. When it comes to human behavior and our treatment of animals and one another, we are simultaneously the most compassionate and cruelest species, the most loving and the most destructive.

For her exhibition at Dallas Contemporary, Wadlington presents a new series of paintings depicting familiar characters, who come together in symbolic scenes that mirror humanity’s complex struggles in understanding and caring for mother earth. Inspired by the expansive and ever-changing sky in her new home state of Texas, the paintings appoint the celestial sphere as the covert protagonist and are set in all times of day, from dusk to dawn.

The artist's institutional debut is curated by Emily Edwards, Assistant Curator at Dallas Contemporary.⁠ Says Edwards on Wadlington's work: “I was in love with these fantastical creatures, these figures that were so alive and so full of stories that I wanted to learn more about and spend time with. Creatures big and small, that all have these different tensions that filled me with wonder and also a little bit of fear. I was so drawn in that I could spend hours with these paintings."

Pooled

Library Street Collective
Detroit, MI
August 21 – September 18, 2021

Library Street Collective is pleased to present Pooled, a solo exhibition of new works by Texas-based artist Natalie Wadlington, opening Saturday, August 21st. Originally from Modesto, California, Wadlington often incorporates nostalgic references to her childhood through storytelling and figuration. Many of her recent paintings and drawings consist of narrations of backyard scenes commenting on complex relationships and general existentialism, with hints toward environmentalism. Pooled tells the story of a fictional neighborhood just outside of the Bay Area of California, focusing on the loss of natural spaces through urban development and suburban sprawl. Through each scene, Wadlington portrays human relationships to animals and nature, and our obsession with expansion and control. Although all natural spaces are in some way affected by human behavior, Pooled offers a very clear ecosystem in which humans’ desire for control is often thwarted by nature, symbolizing our lack of ultimate authority, even within domestic spaces. Interestingly, Wadlington consistently features children and animals as the main characters in her works, neither of whom are intently focused on the domination of natural spaces. As a result, elements of playfulness and wonderment are brought forth, highlighting the innocence of the youth and reminding adults of their child-like nature—wide-eyed, inquisitive, and explorative—rather than contextualizing issues through compartmentalization and avoidance.

Wadlington presents ideas of wonderment through her paintings, situating environmental concerns as an underlying theme instead of explicitly depicting the harsh realities of climate change. The figures playfully engage within natural spaces, simultaneously providing hope and angst, a dichotomy that creates a subtle tension within her work. The inclusion of water, for example, can be perceived in a number of manners, potentially providing multiple layers of understanding. A boy playfully spraying water at his pet dog, a sports boat resting in the driveway, rain barrels lining the side of a home, and water flowing through a hose to fill a small man-made pond can all be overlooked as commonalities within backyard spaces. However, there is a greater message to be deduced from the imagery. Wadlington is discussing water scarcity concerns and presenting multiple ways in which we interact with water, whether recreationally, wastefully, or conservatively. Without moral judgements, Wadlington is simply reminding us of the precarious nature of our relationship to water, a resource necessary for human life and particularly controversial in California.

Wadlington utilizes these relationships as symbols for overall existentialism and commentary on the complexity and anxiety of human life. She specifically chooses painting as her medium because of the impossibility of absolute control, seamlessly connecting the medium with the underlying theme of her work. The imagery in Wadlington’s paintings is often whimsical and dreamy, yet the scenes are all artificial depictions, with paint weaving the experiences through psychological and emotional tones within the works.

Backyards

Louis Buhl & Co.
Detroit, MI
May 14 – June 17, 2021

Louis Buhl & Co. is pleased to present Backyards, a solo exhibition of unique works on paper by Natalie Wadlington, opening Friday, May 14th. Wadlington is a Texas-based artist who creates works that are based in story-telling and figuration. Her characters are wide-eyed with wonderment and fear as they navigate various environments and encounters with both wild and domesticated animals. For TITLE, Wadlington has created a series of drawings using various mediums and scales. The works featured are tied together by common themes surrounding observation of the natural world and its inhabitants. 

Wadlington’s works are layered in their defense of our innate connection to other species in the natural world, which is an idea she reinforces through each aspect of her process, from composition and hierarchy to texture, color, light and shadow. The featured pieces are undeniably whimsical, however, Wadlington’s insight and care means that every decision is made in the spirit of mutualism and with respect to real-life environmental nuance. One of the most prominent characteristics of her unique works is compositional unity, where the curves of figurative bodies break and continue on the outline of a dog, fish, or bird, connecting human and animal in an infinite loop of mutual dependence. While Wadlington’s works are rooted in this rapport, TITLE exemplifies her gradual shift in focus onto animals, choosing to eliminate humans from some of the scenes entirely. Still, where a human cannot be seen, his or her presence outside of the frame is implied; whether it’s a bridge, a piece of trash, a tire, or an abandoned shopping cart, even the most natural of spaces are domesticated. 

One thing that is special about the featured body of work is Wadlington’s introduction of graphite, the exhibition debuting a new avenue of expression for the artist. Nearly impossible to achieve in her oil paintings, the detail and depth that graphite allows has served as a catalyst in Wadlington’s continuous exploration of the medium. Says Wadlington: “[All of the drawings in the show] could be paintings, but the level of detail and delicacy I can achieve with the graphite [is much greater]. I don’t paint like that — my paintings are looser, more gestural, more physical… it’s a totally different way of thinking.” 

In addition to graphite, Wadlington uses acrylic and oil pastel to complete the series. Offering a distant glimpse into Wadlington’s creative process, the variation in works paired with their salon-style layout pay homage to Wadlington’s studio, where anything from quick sketches to detailed color studies for her large-scale oil paintings fill the walls. Her works invite the viewer to take time with each one; the imagery is specific, but not so much that it eliminates room for interpretation or curiosity. “The scenes aren’t verbatim from my childhood, they’re a fusion of different imagery from my Grandma’s backyard, my Aunt’s backyard, from friends’ homes… [each scene] can be any place because I’m inventing it,” says Wadlington. The ordinary atmospheres that the artist invents through a culmination of her memories growing up are universally recognizable. Subsequently, the imagery projects back onto the viewer, inciting recollections and reflections of personal moments from his or her past. It is this power to evoke a plethora of intimate emotions within the audience that makes for a multi-layered and engaging experience.

Anatomy: Natalie Wadlington

Library Street Collective
Detroit, MI
March 16 - April 27, 2021

Anatomy is a digital exhibition platform that presents a new body of work through the lens of an artist’s studio, with attention paid to their unique background, inspiration, and the factors of everyday life that influence their practice. Launching on March 16, the latest iteration of Anatomy features new paintings by Texas-based artist Natalie Wadlington and examines the artist’s inspirations of past and present, including insightful conversations with artists Gina Beavers and Allison Zuckerman. Wadlington creates vibrant oil paintings that are based in storytelling and figuration, and her characters are wide-eyed with wonderment and fear as they navigate various environments and encounters with both wild and domesticated animals. Within her paintings, humans and animals come together in symbolic scenes that mirror our own complex interpersonal struggles for understanding.

Wadlington’s works are layered in their defense of our innate connection to other species in the natural world, which is an idea she reinforces through each aspect of the painting process, from composition and hierarchy to texture, color, light and shadow. The works are undeniably whimsical, however, Wadlington’s insight and care means that every decision is made in the spirit of mutualism and with respect to real-life environmental nuance. One of the most prominent characteristics of her unique works is compositional unity, where the curves of figurative bodies break and continue on as the outline of a dog, fish, or snapping turtle, connecting human and animal in an infinite loop of mutual dependence.

There is a similar sensitivity in the works in the painted treatment of natural materials - woven rugs, straw hats, and knit fabrics as well as trees, rocks, and wooden floor boards. In this attention to detail and texture, Wadlington lends another level of reverence to the natural world around us and the preciousness of the earth’s resources. She paints these elements as if cultivating them from the earth, weaving thick strokes of paint to create a latch and hook rug or a wicker chair, as well as carving into layers of paint to depict the knots and rings of wood flooring. Grass and animal fur are composed of short energetic strokes, while river rocks are painted with a glossy smoothness.

Wadlington’s natural environments echo the subtleties that set them apart geographically. For the artist, a river isn’t just one of many, but instead she asks important questions about the habitat that each piece depicts. Is the water cold, clear, and still? Or is it murky, dark, and deep? Do its inhabitants emerge at dawn or dusk? These inquiries inform her rich color palette and lighting conditions as much as they do the nature of her encounters. Wadlington’s paintings present a receptiveness only possible from a gentle and intuitive creator.

For the best viewing experience of Anatomy, click here.

© 2014–2023 Natalie Wadlington