Nathan Beard

My artwork is an abstract representation of the fleeting moments of my everyday life and is based upon a recollection of the sensations, colors and spaces I perceived in those moments.  I am inspired by the density and variety of Floridian flora and am conceptually drawn to interweaving layers and its metaphorical application to memory recall and moments of time.

Nathan Beard received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Colorado State University in 2001 and currently maintains a studio in St. Petersburg , Florida.

Traditionally, the exit music played as patrons leave a movie or theatrical performance helps usher the viewer's senses from the imaginary world back to the real world. Beard's current Exit Music series is a personal meditation upon the cyclic qualities of space-time and the weaving of human will with natural forces as a creative activity that sculptures space-time to our adaptive needs and desires. He is using this exit music as a metaphor for the transition through liminal space. Created through layers and layers of paint, color and repeating shapes, the viewer is transported visually through time-space.

Beard's Pond's Edge series, contrasty, focuses on these up close and personal moments he experiences through his transition into fatherhood. Pond's Edge is a quiet search for a more passive balance with natural forces and formally focuses upon the interaction of surface and depth, plant life and cast shadows, color and light. He references photos taken on walks with his family, highlighting the brief moments of beauty in urban retention ponds and modified natural spaces in his everyday life.

Nathan Beard