NADA New York: Dickon Drury, Daniel Gordon, Annie Lapin, Charles Snowden, Wendy White

For NADA New York 2023, Shulamit Nazarian is pleased to present new works by Los Angeles-based artists Annie Lapin and Charles Snowden, London-based artist Dickon Drury, and New York-based artists Daniel Gordon and Wendy White.

Dickon Drury's hyper-saturated, large-scale paintings render unpopulated interior landscapes packed with accessories of books, kitchenware, opened food, and beverages, reminiscent of a person frantically preparing for an uncertain tomorrow. Created during the artist’s residency at Porthmeor Studios in St Ives, the artist’s frenetic scenes mimic the preoccupied mind—one that is active, awake, and refuses to remain still. In his stacked and flattened paintings, he reveals a bounty of visual markers that speak to the possible inhabitant. The eclectic still-life arrangements are positioned upon a coffin-like table, impossibly elevated such that they appear to be tipping directly into the lap of the viewer—casting us in the principal role of the staged narrative. Drury’s work speaks to the obsessive nature and anxieties of the day, dramatizing the persistent desire to control a world that feels chaotic.

Daniel Gordon is known for photography and sculpture that employ appropriation and reproduction in order to question the nature of the image-object relationship. Melding optical illusion, pastiche, mixed media, and a recalibration of analog processes, Gordon consciously reframes what it means to have a photographic practice. A labyrinth built from formalist notions of color, form, line, and composition, his photographs are comprised of disparate images that have been collapsed and recontextualized. Beginning with found imagery sourced from the internet and his camera roll, Gordon reconstructs the three-dimensional form and scale of objects using cut-and-pasted printouts of the objects themselves. The resulting paper objects are then meticulously fabricated to be arranged into various tableaux, which the artist then photographs from a single, frontal vantage point. Gordon’s marriage of digital and analog processes results in chromatic, highly layered works that delight in both the obvious and the confounding elements of their creation. Bringing together memento mori, portraiture, and still life, Gordon deftly synthesizes the history of image making.

Annie Lapin’s paintings reside in a world of multiplicities; digital histories and analog mark making come together to form trompe l’oeil spaces that abide neither to the rules of the virtual nor to the physical. Initiating each painting with generous pours of paint and liquid graphite, Lapin’s abstract marks become the armature around which pictorial space is built. Punched with trompe l’oeil forms, photographic blur, and references to the sublime imagery of Western landscape painting and photography, the polyvalent scenes conjure a sense of mystery and fervor. An abstract form will quickly become part of a body or the extension of land. Polychromatic skyscapes—sourced both from the artist’s photo archive and visual media online—are rendered with hyper-realistic detail, while figures are consumed into epic environments that emerge from color fields. These various references coalesce into a fractured yet coherent depiction of our world, creating an experience akin to our own perception: one that is littered with conflicting information that must logically connect. Lapin shares, “I imagine painting not as a representation of a place or thing, but rather an image of our longing to understand our world, which builds on and defines itself over time, like the contours of our historical narratives and myths."

Using symbolic imagery from antiquity and everyday life, Charles Snowden’s ceramic sculptures reflect on the cycles of life and death. Invoking ancient rituals, he recasts apotropaic objects—protective forms intended to ward off threats of evil or harm—with imagery from nature. With the garden as a site for the investigation of mortality and clay as a material synonymous with the body, Snowden reinterprets historical imagery as a vehicle for understanding the temporal nature of our existence. The artist weaves together references to domestic spaces and gardens—including architecture, the body, plants, and a variety of imagined creatures—with specific rituals. With symbols of metamorphosis, growth, deterioration, and decay throughout, the artist presents existential imagery with mystery and humor. Snowden shares, “I imagine possibilities within the relationships between the human, non-human and by extension non-living world to cultivate experiences that feel regenerative and playful, yet melancholic.”

Wendy White’s After Calder works—framed canvases with suspended sculptures attached—ask the viewer to reconsider what constitutes a painting by challenging art historical conventions of representational painting as solely a space for illusion. Inspired in part by Alexander Calder’s prototypical works from the late-1930s, each piece juxtaposes an atmospheric surface with a suspended sculpture, expanding the traditional notion of “focal point” into three dimensions. In her After Calder series, White combines iconic elements of her visual language, including gestural abstraction, pop culture symbology, and sculptural adaptations to painting. Suspending her signature black Dibond sculptures against grainy, raw canvases airbrushed in muted sunset palettes, White creates deep and shallow space simultaneously. Presented in matte black and pared down to their formal essence, each symbol remains quietly suspended between real and painterly space. These works continue a decades-long exploration of art history and pop culture symbolism—both in critique and homage—suggesting that there are no new marks, only new combinations.

Dickon Drury (b.1986, Salisbury, UK, Lives and works in London) received a BFA in Fine Art Painting at Falmouth College of Art in Cornwall, UK, and in 2016, he received an MFA in Painting at The Slade School of Fine Art in London, UK. Recent solo exhibitions include: If you see me, then weep, Galleri Opdahl, Stavanger, Norway (2023); Time Flies Like an Arrow, Fruit Flies Like a Banana, Kendall Koppe, Glasgow (2021); Dickon Drury, Condo London, Koppe Astner at Carlos Ishikwa, London (2020); To Be The Key, Galleri Opdhal, Stavanger (2019); Art Review Asia Xian Chang section at Westbund, with Koppe Astner, Shanghai (2018); Tennis Elbow, The Journal Gallery, New York (2018); Holed Up, Galleri Opdhal, Stavanger (2018); If The Sea Was Whiskey, Frutta Gallery, Rome (2017); The Who‘s Who of Whos, Koppe Astner, Glasgow (2016); Optics Don‘t Make Marks, Spike Island Project Space, Bristol. Selected group exhibitions include: Midnight Murmurs, Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles (2022); My Kid Could’ve Done That!, The Edge, Bath (2021); Generation Y, Platform Foundation, London (2019); A New Kitchen Sink, Josh Lilley, London (2017).

Daniel Gordon holds a BA from Bard College and an MFA from Yale School of Art. Gordon has held solo exhibitions at Kasmin Gallery, New York, NY; James Fuentes, New York, NY; Houston Center for Photography, Houston, TX; M+B, Los Angeles, CA; Bolte Lang, Zürich, Switzerland; Foam Museum, Amsterdam, NL; and Wallspace, New York, NY. He has participated in several museum group exhibitions, including the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Pier 24, San Francisco, CA; MoMA P.S. 1, Queens, NY; and Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY. Gordon’s work has been featured in a number of monographs, most recently in Houseplants, published by Aperture. His work has been highlighted by numerous publications, including The New York Times, Art Review, Frieze, Architectural Digest, The New York Magazine, and Art in America. Gordon’s work resides in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Guggenheim, New York; Pier 24, San Francisco; Foam Museum, Amsterdam; and the VandenBroek Foundation, Lisse, NL.

He is the author of Houseplants (Aperture 2019), Spaces, Faces, Tables and Legs (OSP, 2018), Intermissions (OSP, 2017), Still Life with Onions and Mackerel (OSP, 2014), Still Lifes, Portraits, and Parts (Mörel, 2013), Flowers and Shadows (Onestar Press, 2011) and Flying Pictures (powerHouse Books, 2009). Gordon’s work has also been highlighted in several international publications including: The New York Times, The New Yorker, Art Review, Frieze, Architectural Digest, New York Magazine, W Magazine, Art in America, Modern Painters, PHOTONEWS, Dazed & Confused, Art in America, and Flash Art. His work resides in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Guggenheim, New York, Pier 24, San Francisco, Foam Museum, Amsterdam, and the VandenBroek Foundation, Lisse, NL.

Annie Lapin (b. Washington D.C., 1978; Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA) received her Master of Fine Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2007, her Post-Baccalaureate Certificate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2004, and her Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale University in 2001. Select solo exhibitions include Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, CA; Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; Josh Lilley, London, England; Annarumma Gallery, Naples, Italy; Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC; Honor Fraser, Los Angeles, CA; Yautepec Gallery, Mexico City, Mexico; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Santa Barbara, CA. Group exhibitions include the USC Fisher Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Bruce Museum, Greenwich, CT; Hilger Contemporary, Vienna, Austria; Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy; Sargent’s Daughters, New York, NY; LA Louver, Los Angeles, CA; and the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY.

Lapin is the recipient of the Falk Visiting Artist Award at the Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro, NC and she has been awarded residencies at Anderson Ranch Art Center, Snowmass Village, CO; Grand Arts, Kansas, MO; Burren College of Art, Ballyvaughn, Ireland; and Chautauqua Institute, New York, NY. Her work has been featured in Art in America, Modern Painters, Los Angeles Times, Harper’s Magazine, Art and Antiquities, Artnews, Hyperallergic, Artsy, and New American Paintings.

Annie Lapin’s work is included in the permanent collections of the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; The Carolyn Campagna Kleefeld Contemporary Art Museum at California State University, Long Beach, CA; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS; Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA; Rubell Family Collection, Miami, FL; Santa Barbara Museum, Santa Barbara, CA; Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC; and Zabludowicz Collection, London, England.

Charles Snowden (b. 1989, San Diego, CA; Lives and works in Barcelona, Spain and Los Angeles, CA) holds an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles and a BA from Humboldt State University. Snowden’s solo exhibitions include Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, CA; Hill Street Country Club, Oceanside, CA; and Blue Gate Gallery, Oceanside, CA. Group exhibitions include Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, CA; Swivel Gallery, New York, NY; Guerrero Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; San Diego Art Institute, CA; Millard Sheets Art Center, Pomona, CA; and Oceanside Museum of Art, Oceanside, CA. His works are in the permanent collection of the San Diego Art Institute and have been featured in Hyperallergic. Snowden’s work will be featured in the forthcoming exhibition Wayfinding at the Craft Contemporary Museum in Los Angeles, CA.

Wendy White (b. 1971, Deep River, CT; Lives and works in New York, NY) received her MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University and her BFA from Savannah College of Art and Design. Institutional exhibitions include Low Pressure at Museum Goch, Germany; The World’s Game: Fútbol and Contemporary Art at Pérez Art Museum, Miami (2018) and LACMA, Los Angeles (2014); Full of Peril and Weirdness: Painting as a Universalism, M Woods, Beijing (2015); Globe as a Palette: Contemporary Art from the Taguchi Collection, Hokkaido Obihiro Museum of Art (2019); The Art Show: Art of the New Millenium in Taguchi Art Collection, The Museum of Modern Art, Gunma, Japan (2016); Taguchi Hiroshi Art Collection at The Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu, Japan (2015); American Idyll at SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA (2018); EXPEDITION at The Brattleboro Museum and Art Center (2021); and So Athletic, Kunstverein Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin (2012).

White is the recipient of the Teiger Mentorship in the Arts at Cornell University (2019), a Painting Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts (2012), and a George Segal Painting Grant (2008). Her work was featured in Phaidon’s anthology Vitamin P2: New Perspectives in Painting (2011) and has been reviewed in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Artforum, Art in America, New York Magazine, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, Artnet, Time Out New York, Modern Painters, ArtNews and BOMB Magazine, among others.

White’s work is on permanent public display at the Kranzberg Arts Foundation, St. Louis and the Le Verger Sculpture Garden in Lacoste, France.The artist’s works are in the permanent collection of Detroit Institute of the Arts; The High Museum; RISD Art Museum; Museum Goch; The Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts in Birmingham; Kranzberg Art Foundation; Saks Fifth Avenue; Taguchi Art Collection; UK Art Museum; Mercedes-Benz Stadium; Savannah College of Art & Design; UBS Art Collection; Progressive Art Collection; Jimenéz-Colón Collection; The Shinola Hotel; Tulip Collection; Rocket Mortgage Field House; Detroit Pistons Practice Facility; Southern Poverty Law Center and ARCO Foundation.