November 10, 2023
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Local News for a Global Village | www.VoiceSB.com
Sullivan Goss: An American Gallery
Climbing into Nathan Huff ’s
Forest For The Trees W By Kerry Methner / VOICE
ITH A VISUAL LANGUAGE ALL ITS OWN, Nathan Huff ’s third solo exhibition at Sullivan Goss is now open. Many will remember the ladders, small boats, and oaks that populated his earlier works. They return again, though subtly changed, evoking even more clearly earthly transience and a pull to the ethereal realms.
Offering space for quiet reflection, wonder, and fancy, Huff ’s recurring evocative metaphors reflect moments with his young daughters or time spent tending the two miles of hiking paths that meander through oaks at Westmont College. Those moments build connection and are grounding in the midst of change. Huff ’s connection to the physical world and respect for nature shows up in his careful analogue depictions where he arranges the falling leaves in his paintings and captures them individually. “I have always had this arc in my practice about suspension and looking at something from as many different angles as possible. So you could throw it up and walk around it in slow motion,” Huff explained as he began to reflect on his practice and Forest for the Trees. “I have been thinking about rootedness, and trees going into the ground, and then this kind of temporal movement, and horizontal locations as well.” He continued, “So the boats are kind of a stand in for people, that flow across environments. And so, that’s kind of the motif... it’s like climbing and flowing... it’s an intersection between spirit and my own aspirational hopes and pathos, at the same time...That’s often the bigger thoughts there and then I just really enjoy walking through the landscape...”
Arranging Stars by Nathan Huff
Some of Huff ’s favorite trees become iconic in his work and appear in several of the paintings, with their familiar crooks and sharp bends becoming scaffolding for a new iteration and exploration. Boats and ladders that appear are created from tree limbs the artist has found or been gifted, with rungs painstakingly carved and placed. The boats are each unique, as perhaps the journey of the individuals they stand in for, sometimes alone, sometimes meeting, and sometimes moving through each other. Often ladders are reaching for the sky or stars. Intersections by Nathan Huff
Rich vivid color lifts the mood of the body of work even in the face of cut down trees. In Glow, ladders take the place of missing trunks and branches, dancing to reach the sky. Globes of light shine brightly among them.
Rhythms and Currents by Nathan Huff
At the center of the exhibition is a ceiling to almost the floor installation that Huff designed to offer a sense of being among the trees. And there are his small hand constructed wooden ladders inside. “I thought of the experience of running through trees, the experience of dappled light. I have long had a fascination and love of different trees,” he recalled. Warmly familiar and at the same time mysterious, inviting, and even mythic, somehow we are depicted here in this group of works, and what is revealed is somehow our story, too. Now is your chance to experience it. The exhibition will be on view through December 18th. Nathan Huff earned an MFA in Drawing and Painting from CSU Long Beach and a BA in art education from Azusa Pacific University. In 2013, he moved to Santa Barbara to accept a position as Assistant Professor of Art at Westmont College where he quickly became known as one of the most exciting young artists in town. Huff’s installations have been featured in solo exhibitions at UCR Culver and Sweeney Galleries (Riverside), Los Angeles at D.E.N. Contemporary (West Hollywood), Minthorne Gallery (Oregon), Gallerie View (Salambo, Tunisia), group exhibitions at JK Gallery (Culver City), Lotusland (Santa Barbara), Westmont Ridley Tree Museum of Art (Santa Barbara), and the Angels Gate Cultural Center (San Pedro, CA). Glow by Nathan Huff
The gallery is located at 11 East Anapamu St.
www.SullivanGoss.com A Sudden Gust (after Hokusai, Jeff Wall) by Nathan Huff