NATHANIEL HESTER

ADAM CAVE FINE ART - 115-1/2 East Hargett Street, 2nd Floor - Raleigh, NC 27601 - (919) 838-6692

NATHANIEL HESTER: NORTH CAROLINA ARTIST

Nathaniel Hester lives on a remote farm in rural North Carolina that has been in his family for over eight generations.  His barn-like studio sits among assorted smokehouses, woodsheds and corncribs behind a1920’s farmhouse. Chickens and ducks greet visitors as they drive up and cattle can be seen in the distant fields. This seems an odd lifestyle choice for an energetic young artist educated in cities across the US and Europe. Hester, however, sees it as an opportunity to connect with his roots and focus on his art.

Nathaniel grew up an hour south of the farm in Raleigh. He attended Rice University and graduated in 1999 with a BA in both Studio Art and Art History. Hester then left for Europe on a Clyde Ferguson Bull Traveling Fellowship, beginning a string of auspicious learning experiences. He studied at both the Parsons School of Design in Paris and at the International School of Art in Umbria, Italy. In 2001 he moved to New York City where he did residencies at the New York Studio School of Drawing and Painting, the Art Student’s League, the New York Film Academy, and the Manhattan Graphics Center. By 2002 Nathaniel had jumped coasts to Berkeley, California to study at Kala Art Institute. In 2003 he entered Boston University’s MFA program, graduating in 2005.

Now, at age 31, Nathaniel Hester has a wealth of experiences, a great deal to say artistically, and the means to communicate his ideas.

 

NATHANIEL HESTER: PAINTER AND PRINTMAKER

Hester often develops a series to fully explore his ideas. He is comfortable in a variety of mediums including painting, collage, etching, silkscreen, and woodblock prints. Past subjects include Ship of Fools; 100 oils on canvas imagining, through abstract compositions, the maritime battles of the Civil War. Twenty zinc plate etchings in Imagine an Anchor feature toy figures setup as mysterious, even foreboding still-lifes. His most current work, Animal Farm, is a series of 20 silkscreen prints featuring abstract animal portraits. A full-color catalog of this bold group of works can be found by clicking HERE.

One suite of aquatints, What Falls Away, was recently published in the 2007 Harvard Review. “Nathaniel Hester’s black and white images were just the sort of thing we look for,” said editor Christina Thompson. “His work is both a nice counterbalance to the more established artists we have published like Ellsworth Kelly and Philip Guston and also a reflection of the emerging writers who often get their start in our pages.”

NATHANIEL HESTER: SELECTED COLLECTIONS

Artwork by Nathaniel Hester can be found in the Fogg Museum of Art at Harvard, the University of Miami, the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College, the New York Public Library, as well as in private and corporate collections worldwide. Dr. Larry Wheeler, director of the North Carolina Museum of Art, has added works by Hester to his personal collection. Wheeler writes, “Nate Hester is able to capture complex ideas often layered in his elegant prints. This is an achievement attained only by master printmakers. And he is one.”

For a list of available artwork by Nathaniel Hester, please click HERE.

Nathaniel Hester is represented by ADAM CAVE FINE ART, Raleigh, North Carolina