Nick Fagan: What’s Happening to Me?
Massey Klein is pleased to present What’s Happening to Me?, hosted in the gallery’s intimate east viewing room. The exhibition will be on view from December 3rd to January 22nd with an opening reception on Friday, December 10th. This is the artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. For press inquiries or questions regarding works available, please email info@masseyklein.com.
Nick Fagan creates paintings with crocheted and woven blankets sourced from thrift stores and yard sales throughout the Eastern Seaboard. In What’s Happening to Me?, the artist presents a new body of work that combines vessel iconography with vivid textiles. Fagan’s sourced blankets contain their own memories encoded with acts of warmth, comfort, and care. The absorbent role of the material is echoed by the depiction of vessels, an object of containment.
After cutting, sewing, and rethreading blankets, Fagan composes self-portraits with painterly gesture. His colorful and curvaceous forms elevate ordinary materials to art objects. The rumination of each vessel replaces quotidian banality with an exalted individual history that ushers in the canon of portraiture. While in residency at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, Fagan was dedicated to producing one painting per week that acted as a self-portrait. The final collection of works, now on view for this exhibition, are imbued with the artist’s weekly reflections. The artist’s weekly journal entries will be made available for the viewer to read while they experience the exhibition.
Weaving and sewing, processes traditionally attributed to craft, encourage Fagan to abandon conventional roles of masculinity. What’s Happening to Me? introduces a cartoon-like liveliness where elements of humor find harmony with the artist’s spiritual handling of reused materials.
Massey Klein Gallery is located at 124 Forsyth St. New York, NY 10002. For inquiries regarding works available, please contact info@masseyklein.com.