Nick Lamia’s abstract paintings combine vibrant color ranging from solidly opaque metallic hues to shimmering transparent washes in a graphic style that clearly springs from observation of nature. A meeting ground for biomorphic and geometric forms, deep and shallow space, the shimmering surfaces of these paintings invite the exploration of opposites, from mapping urban constructs to navigating gradually revealed landscapes.

In a presentation at the end of his residency at Wave Hill last winter, Nick talked about how the process of close observation the Riverdale workspace offered him has inflected his artistic practice.

When you draw objects, in this case dead bees and flies, and the drawings themselves are larger than your subject, you cannot help but to make up some information to flesh out their forms. Here I’ve had an opportunity to make realistic drawings of dead flies, of nests, and trees—at close range. It brings a different kind of specifity to my abstract imagery, which has previously been composed with more generalized combinations of remembered forms and colors. 

When I learned that Nick was to have a solo exhibition opening at Jason McCoy Gallery this Friday, I arranged to visit his Chelsea studio last week. On a day brightened by the metallic light New York is famous for, I found the art for the show neatly stacked up, ready for the movers to wrap and carry away. Over coffee I heard about his life in art, and that while he regularly drew in notebooks from childhood on, being an artist was not what he, or anyone in his family, could have envisioned for him.

After getting a degree in environmental science and biology from UC Berkley, Nick applied for a teaching position at the Yosemite Institute—but was initially unable to secure the job despite his repeated inquires. Giving up on that idea, he applied for a paralegal job in a D.C. law firm, aiming to get a taste of environmental law before applying to law school; on the day he was informed that he had the position, he also got the nod from Yosemite. He taught ecology and geology there for two years, continuing to draw and paint on his own, then moved to New York where he began his formal training at the New York Studio School. In 2000, he received an MFA in Painting from Boston University.

The relationship between man and nature, always central to Nick's abstractions, seems to have been further amplified by a series of detailed graphite drawings he is currently working on—pictures of sawed-off tree stumps in Central Park inhabited by plants growing from wandering seeds and spores, given an opportunity to flourish through human intervention.

The title of the show at Jason McCoy is “Coppice,” the term for a traditional method of woodland management that, to Lamia, represents an intentional merging of man and nature. The exhibition will be an installation that combines wall painting extensions of works on canvas as well as a pair of sawn sections from a mammoth limb of a Copper Beech that was recently felled at Wave Hill; painted tree branches; and the stump drawings. Together these elements speak for the artist’s contemplation of destruction and regrowth and the complex relationships entailed.

The opening reception for Nick Lamia | Coppice at Jason McCoy Gallery is Friday, May 4, 6-8 pm. 41 East 57^th Street, NY, NY.

Nick Lamia lives and works in New York. Among the awards he has received are a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2003; a Robert Blackburn Printmaking Fellowship and a MacDowell Colony Residency, both in 2009. The artist participated in the Bronx Museum’s AIM Program in 2010 and the Winter Workshop Residency at Wave Hill in 2012. Recent exhibitions include projects at the Bronx Museum of Arts, NY and the Maine Center for Contemporary Art. His artwork is next scheduled to appear in Linear Thinking at Seton Hall University in 2012 and at Boston University in 2013 as part of a group show titled Simultaneity.

Photo: © Joshua Bright 2012, courtesy Wave Hill.