David Nash 45 Years of Drawing

7 Nov-20 Dec 2024

Overview

Annely Juda Fine Art is pleased to announce a major solo exhibition of works on paper by David Nash in collaboration with Galerie Lelong & Co., Paris, spanning 45 years of his practice. This significant exhibition marks Nash’s 10th solo show with Annely Juda Fine Art and the second dedicated entirely to his works on paper.

David Nash’s lifelong exploration of the nature of wood and its habitats has established him as one of Britain’s foremost artists working in sculpture and environmental installations. Through his profound understanding of the qualities of trees - both in life and after being cut - he has developed a unique artistic idiom. Drawing has played a vitally important role alongside his sculptural work. What began as a tool for sketching ideas for sculptures soon evolved into an independent creative endeavour, as effective in swiftly capturing ideas as the physical directness of carving. 

This expansive exhibition will encompass 45 years of Nash’s works on paper, presenting the subjects that have captivated him for nearly five decades. Among these are his "Family Trees". From the late 1970s, Nash became conscious of the convergence of ideas while working on multiple sculptures simultaneously: sometimes the collision of two ideas would unveil yet another path. To conceptualise this progression, he developed a visual language of family trees and other relatives - a symbolic value system that reflects upon his dynamic practice. 

Complementing his early work in pastel, charcoal and watercolour, from around 2006 Nash began to apply raw pigment directly onto paper, in an energetic process befitting the physical application of a sculptor. He deliberately leaves halos of colour around delineated shapes, alongside dust, specks and fingerprints that evidence the making of the composition; anything that he feels detracts from the sense of ‘moment’, he reduces or eliminates. Thus, a dynamic tension of gesture and precision characterises Nash’s drawings that mirrors the hybrid nature of his sculptures, in which co-exist a sense of both craftsmanship and the triumph of nature. 

Among his works with pure pigment will feature his Red and Black compositions, originating from the colours he observed while charring redwood. Just as his sculptural practice reveals his sensitivity to form in the natural world, so too his observation of colour in nature translates into works on paper. Thus, Nash recreates only the hues he has directly observed, as exemplified in Oak Leaves Through May, which tracks the progression of five colours over the first 10 days of oak leafing - colours Nash meticulously documented while observing three oak trees over a 30-day period.

David Nash: 45 Years of Drawing offers a rare opportunity to explore the full scope of Nash’s engagement with drawing, revealing the integral role it has played in his broader artistic journey. The works on display capture the immediacy, energy and evolution of his ideas across 45 years, providing fresh insights into the mind of an artist whose work is as much about process as it is about form. As Nash himself notes, “all I can hope for is that the ‘truth’ of the idea is indicated in the life of the marks.”