Paul Nudd
In art ltd in 2011, James Yood wrote of Paul Nudd, “If the body is a temple, Nudd offers it as crumbling and collapsing, as an amazing remnant soon to be food for very busy worms.” Nudd is committed to central themes of primal sludge, growth and disease, systems of classification, mutation and life, patterning and mark making. His mixed-media paintings on canvas offer up images of head-like entities emerging from colorful thick swaths of paint. His figure drawings are cartoonishly terrifying mutants, alien/human mash-ups besotted with tumors, warts, lesions, growths, male and female genitalia and mis-placed pubic hair. In these works, the repetition of pea-green and small internal lumps reference the pituitary gland, an adolescent’s albatross, here forming into something unhealthy, or dirty, such as a tumor. Nudd’s videos are endless cycles of spastic rupturing of gunk and goo, reflecting Nudd’s artistic practice as a whole.
Paul Nudd’s solo and two-person shows include Bourouina Gallery in Berlin, Hap Gallery in Portland, OR, Jack the Pelican Presents in Brooklyn, telephonebooth in Kansas City and the Hyde Park Art Center, Bodybuilder & Sportsmen, and Dogmatic, all in Chicago. His work has been included in group shows in Dusseldorf, San Francisco, Minneapolis, …
In art ltd in 2011, James Yood wrote of Paul Nudd, “If the body is a temple, Nudd offers it as crumbling and collapsing, as an amazing remnant soon to be food for very busy worms.” Nudd is committed to central themes of primal sludge, growth and disease, systems of classification, mutation and life, patterning and mark making. His mixed-media paintings on canvas offer up images of head-like entities emerging from colorful thick swaths of paint. His figure drawings are cartoonishly terrifying mutants, alien/human mash-ups besotted with tumors, warts, lesions, growths, male and female genitalia and mis-placed pubic hair. In these works, the repetition of pea-green and small internal lumps reference the pituitary gland, an adolescent’s albatross, here forming into something unhealthy, or dirty, such as a tumor. Nudd’s videos are endless cycles of spastic rupturing of gunk and goo, reflecting Nudd’s artistic practice as a whole.
Paul Nudd’s solo and two-person shows include Bourouina Gallery in Berlin, Hap Gallery in Portland, OR, Jack the Pelican Presents in Brooklyn, telephonebooth in Kansas City and the Hyde Park Art Center, Bodybuilder & Sportsmen, and Dogmatic, all in Chicago. His work has been included in group shows in Dusseldorf, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Houston, Denver and was included in Seeing Is a Kind of Thinking: A Jim Nutt Companion at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. His prodigious zine work can be found in several national artist book collections including the Museum of Modern Art; Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; New Jersey Public Library; National Academy of Design, New York; Indiana University and School of the Art Institute of Chicago His collaborative printmaking work with the comix artist ONSMITH has been written about in Art in Print. His work has been written about in the Chicago Tribune, art ltd, Modern Painters, New American Paintings and New City. Paul Nudd received his MFA from the University of Illinois-Chicago in 2001. He is represented by Western Exhibitions in Chicago and he lives and works in Berwyn, Illinois.
Courtesy of Western Exhibitions
