Swimming at Night

Produced by Art For Change
Archival pigment print.
Hand-embellished, numbered, and signed by the artist. Each work is unique and will appear different than shown.
19.5” x 19.5” (Edition of 15)

Created while living in Texas, Swimming at Night is inspired by the wildlife that the artist encountered during her daily walks. The animals recalled Wadlington’s childhood memories of swimming by moonlight in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, a pastime that had been associated with both fear and exhilaration. For this print series, the artist will hand embellish each work by adding metallic details to various details in the image, such as the moon, stars, swimsuit and water ripples.

Natalie Wadlington is a Brooklyn-based artist who taps into her personal memories to create emotionally potent scenes. Charged with pensiveness, wonderment and a childlike tenderness, her paintings are borne out of a layered process, which begins with the artist digitally combining photographs that she has taken—of herself, flowers, sunsets, and so forth—with stock imagery. Although these collages are not replicated in the final works, they become visual and metaphorical starting points that are then reimagined on the canvas. Lusciously rendered figures and objects take on elusive meanings in Wadlington’s work, bringing to mind the hieroglyphs of ages past. Wadlington’s work was the subject of a solo exhibition, titled Places That Grow, at Dallas Contemporary in 2022.

Of the importance of combating climate change, Wadlington notes, “I’m from Modesto in California’s Central Valley, an agricultural basin that provides an estimated 25% of the nation’s food. The water crisis is becoming acute all across the state, and the agriculture industry of the Central Valley is in trouble. They source their water from the Sierra Nevadas, which are increasingly depleted every year from that drainage; this is made worse by a lack of adequate snowfall and forest fires. Now, many of the places from my childhood are burnt down. I reflect on how the California I grew up with is gone, both ecologically and economically. We continue to live with the consequences of unchecked corporate greed, political shortsightedness, and resource theft that began with the onset of colonization.”

In support of global reforestation, ten trees will be planted for each print sale of works in this series commissioned on the occasion of EXPO CHICAGO 2023. The artist will also receive 50% of net proceeds from each sale.

Garden with White Oak

Produced by Deb Chaney Editions
6 color lithograph on Arches 270gsm.
Deckled, numbered, and signed by the artist.
28” x 22” (Edition of 40)

Garden with White Birch depicts a subject and an animal situated in a garden, the human bending and adjusting to the dog's company. Through their nuanced interplay, I depict our longing for connection. In order to create the lithograph, I visited New York where I worked closely with Deb Chaney Editions. Through the guidance that Deb and her team provided, I had the opportunity to revisit the art of lithography, a process of which I am fond.

Drawing on a lithography stone is very rewarding because the mark-making is so smooth and buttery. The oil sticks glide across the surface of the stone so delicately, it is a wonderful way to draw. I explore a smaller, lighter touch in my drawing practice, and the lithograph stone lends itself well to this. It allows me to enter a thoughtful, dreamy space that perhaps the figure in this print embodies.

Produced by Louis Buhl & Co.
5 color process print on Cougar White 160# cover with full satin varnish.
Deckled, numbered, and signed by the artist.
26.5” x 24” (Edition of 30)

Natalie Wadlington's first-ever print edition Garden was produced by Louis Buhl & Co. in collaboration with Cranbrook Academy of Art for STUDIO 2021. The edition depicts a subject in her garden, where she is met by an encounter between domesticated and wild animals. As with many of the artist’s narratives, the animals are the central figures, and the human bends and adjusts to their company. Through the subject’s and the animals’ nuanced interplay, Wadlington depicts our longing for connection. Her figures observe, disrupt, contemplate, question and invade the lives of the animals they meet, presenting varying approaches to our own interpersonal actions and reactions regarding the people in our lives.

© 2014–2023 Natalie Wadlington