Nathanael
Flink
Bio
Nathanael Flink
Nathanael Flink is an artist based in Minnesota. He earned a BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 1994. Flink has been the recipient of the Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship and the Knight Foundation Arts Challenge Grant. His work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions in Pusan, South Korea, Chattanooga, Tennessee, St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has exhibited in group exhibitions nationally including New York, California, and Greece. He is represented by Veronique Wantz gallery in Minnesota, and Wavelength Space in Chattanooga. His work is held in private collections in North America, Scandinavia, and Asia.
Flink's aesthetic vocabulary involves a searching for emotive and pure gestures that suggest a relationship with other compositional elements. Utilizing unlikely combinations of color and pattern he creates open ended abstractions with soft materials, with an esteem for the materiality of stitching and dying. Through the lens of a domestic, liminal experience his pieces imply an urbanized world reflective of movement and light which both encloses and expands spatial intervals. Often the evidence of form and mark making becomes its own subject. Flink creates his work and lives with his family in Saint Paul.
Pieces
Number of items found:
9
Artist's Statement
For my series from 2022-23, thematically my work is a reaction to throw away culture and overt American commercialism. I utilize found and recycled fabrics (often originating from bolts of upholstery material), sewing them together with bright thread, to reformulate compositions into new collaged amalgamations. My work is a study of the superficiality of society while paradoxically evoking nostalgia. Utilizing techniques from the world of textiles, my work offers subtle challenges to the confines of cultural expectation. It is an unearthing of a personal narrative that bares vulnerability and curiosity.