Terrarium

Nathan Gray

In the Front Gallery of Gertrude Contemporary, Nathan Gray presented Terrarium, a breathtaking installation of exquisitely detailed screen-prints, along with suspended and floor-based sculpture incorporating woven and cut up hand-printed paper. Terrarium was based on topographic, metaphysical, inter-dimensional, otherworldly and spiritual ideas about gardens, with each element containing repetitive, mutating patterns and textures that mimic the structure and development of plants, fungi and coral. Displaying the artist’s key influences of 1960s psychedelic art, Meso-American and Tibetan sculpture and adornment, and Papua New Guinean shamanism, Gray’s largest and most ambitious project offered a considered but playful meditation on the ideas and aesthetics of gardens, synthesizing his talents in print-making, sculpture, graphic-design and sound. Nathan Gray is a Melbourne-based artist who holds a BA Fine Art and a Postgraduate Diploma in Electronic Design and Interactive Media. Selected solo exhibitions include Neu Work, Bus, Melbourne 2005; Rock Bottom, Alice Euphemia, Melbourne 2005; and Hirstute, Pigeon Ground Public, Sydney 2004. Selected group exhibitions include Otherworld, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne 2005 and Slave, VCA Gallery, Melbourne 2005. Gray is a member of the improvised electro acoustic duo Snawklor, and he has secured numerous commissions for album cover and T-Shirt designs.