David Zwirner Presents PLATFORM : NEW YORK Nathaniel Robinson (On View April 3 - May 1)

New York City is in the midst of an unprecedented lockdown. In light of

this, David Zwirner has launched PLATFORM : NEW YORK an initiative

to help twelve NYC galleries who lack online infrastructure. While scrolling

through Zwirner’s exclusive ‘Viewing Room’ I was struck by the three large

paintings by Nathaniel Robinson, represented by Magenta Plains.

The paintings depict landscapes in pastel that reveal subtle clues about

humanities entangled tension with nature.

Nathaniel Robinson Untitled, 2020

The first painting appears modeled after a photograph taken from a car

cruising past. The scene depicts a typical suburban garage as an active

blur. The only point of focus is glimpsed through the bank of garage door

windows, viewing straight through to the forest beyond. This painting

resonated as a meditation on the fleeting nature of time, and the fragility

of humanity. Nature is the constant, whereas man's structures will

eventually blur and pass away. Through seemingly simple subject matter

Robinson reaches for the profound.

Nathaniel Robinson Untitled, 2020

The second painting is a cool, muted, cityscape of large residential

buildings punctuated by a central dark mass of trees springing up

through a void between apartment blocks. A blue tarp is stretched

over a slump in a roof while the weather appears to be threatening

rain. Robinson landscapes are an anxious rumination on a the tension

between the temporality of our built environment and the natural world.

Nathaniel Robinson Untitled, 2019

The final painting depicts another casual view as seen from a car

window driving  down the freeway. A distant highway off-ramp sign

gleams before a towering dark mass of trees. Although the scene

is devoid of humans, humanity's presence and impact on this mass

transit corridor is unmistakable. Robinson’s carefully crafted

paintings ask us to take a deeper look at our relationship to the

natural world. With humanity united in lockdown from Covid-19,

Robinson’s work feels prescient.The final painting depicts another

casual view as-seen from a car window cruising down the freeway.

A distant highway off-ramp sign gleams before a towering dark mass

of unruly trees. Although the scene is devoid of humans, humanity's

presence and impact on this mass-transit corridor is unmistakable.

Robinson’s carefully crafted paintings ask us to take a deeper look

at our relationship with the natural world. With humanity in lockdown

from Covid-19, Robinson’s work feels all the more prescient.