Wendell Gladstone: Lover's Knot

Opening Reception Saturday, May 31, 6–8pm. 

Nazarian / Curcio is pleased to present Lover’s Knot, Wendell Gladstone’s third solo exhibition with the gallery.

In this new body of work, Gladstone explores intimacy as both a physical and metaphysical experience. Figures appear in intertwined embraces—bodies threaded together like cords—evoking the emotional complexity and binding force of human connection. The knot, as both motif and metaphor, anchors the exhibition as a symbol of love’s capacity to support, entangle, and transform. Drawing from the symbolic tradition of the lover’s knot—an emblem of unbreakable bonds found in jewelry, art, and folklore—Gladstone expands its meaning into the architectural and emotional space of the paintings.

Gladstone’s compositions blur the line between body and structure. Architectural elements—balconies, hearths, and facades—take on sentient qualities, shifting in response to the emotional charge of their surroundings. These spaces act not as backdrops but as extensions of the figures themselves, echoing the energy of the relationships they contain.

Nature appears as another connective force. Sinuous vines wind through the works, serving as both physical links and symbolic threads of attachment. The recurring image of the balcony emerges as a liminal zone between interior and exterior, domestic and wild, conscious and unconscious—highlighting the tension and harmony inherent in connection.

Narrative flourishes punctuate the series: a seahorse leaps toward a bird in With the Tide by My Side, while a stained-glass hearth flickers with a vision of a kiss in Passion Premonition. These moments suggest love not only as a lived experience but as a mythic or prophetic force.

Gladstone’s distinctive visual language—surreal, symbolic, and emotionally resonant—invites viewers into a world where bodies become structures, architecture breathes, and emotion takes form. In Lover’s Knot, love itself becomes a kind of architecture: built, bound, and sustained by invisible forces.

Wendell Gladstone (b. 1972, Boston, MA; Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA) received his BA at Brown University, an MFA in Painting at Claremont Graduate University, and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He has exhibited in numerous solo exhibitions, including at Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, CA; Kravets/Wehby, New York, NY; and Roberts & Tilton, Los Angeles. CA;, and, in 2003, at the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art. Select museum group exhibitions include the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Las Vegas Art Museum, Las Vegas, NV; the Chelsea Art Museum, New York, NY; the Kemper Museum, Kansas City, MO; and the San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX. His works have been written about by Artforum, Art in America, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, New York Magazine, Artsy, Artnet, Installation Magazine, Elephant, Hyperallergic, Juxtapoz, and WhiteWall.