Joe Nanashe “Composition in White and Green (a small plot of land)”

LMAKgallery

[Image: Joe Nanashe, detail view of Composition in White and Green (a small plot of land), (2019 )]

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LMAKgallery presents Joe Nanashe’s courtyard installation Composition in White and Green (a small plot of land). The all-consuming installation is a play on the classic American structure of a picket fence and green lawn inside a courtyard.

This timely installation investigates the current climate of American protectionism. Using the classic symbol of the American suburb, the white picket fence symbolizes the protection of an aspiration that has long been forgotten and turned into a much sinister symbol. Nanashe has turned the AstroTurf lawn into an inaccessible cube and allows the viewer a glimpse of a non-functioning fence and garden resting on its side.

With it’s extremely high fence it was never accessible and now that this protective border has been rendered useless we are confronted with another façade of fake grass. The AstroTurf is a perfect pun to the saying “the grass is always greener on the other side”, this promise revealed to be a fraudulent one. The dream of conquered territory, of staking one’s claim, is rendered in a plastic simulation of life. Nanashe has shifted the perception and its use, and turned the innocuous into a sinister engagement with threatening undertones. At the same time he has taken this symbol and turned it into a minimalist structure and created a sculpture on its own accord.

Joe Nanashe has been fascinated with themes of the body, decay, and its relation to contemporary American culture. His exploration of these themes, are done with a keen sense of humor and irony as he investigates them through his work. He received his MFA from Rutgers in 2005 and shown throughout the US such as William Benton Museum of Art, CT; Islip Art Museum, NY; Western Michigan University, MI; Nexus Art, PA; Jersey City Museum, NJ; Museum of Contemporary Art, OH; Marietta College, OH; Vitori + Mo, NY; Eric Firestone Gallery, NY; Garis & Hahn, NY; Catinca Tabacaru, NY; Arts+Leisure, NY and Freight & Volume, NY.